A new study has found that some commonly consumed beverages such as fruit juice and artificial soda contain levels of toxic metals including arsenic, cadmium, and lead that exceed federal drinking water standards.
Researchers from Tulane University, Louisiana, measured 25 different toxic metals and trace elements in 60 soft beverages, including single fruit juice, mixed fruit juice, plant-based milk, artificial soda, and tea.
The drinks were purchased in New Orleans and are commercially available in supermarkets across the United States.
Researchers found that five of the 60 beverages tested contained levels of a toxic metal above federal drinking water standards.
Two mixed juices had levels of arsenic above the 10 microgram/liter standard. Meanwhile, a cranberry juice, a mixed carrot and fruit juice, and an oat milk each had levels of cadmium exceeding the three parts per billion standard.
What Are Arsenic and Cadmium?
Arsenic is a naturally occurring tasteless, colorless, and odorless, chemical element that can be found in the environment, including in food and water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The element persists in the environment and does not deteriorate.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted a 10 parts per billion (ppb), or 10 microgram/liter standard for arsenic in public drinking water in 2001, replacing the old standard of 50 microgram/liter.
However, long-term exposure to high levels of arsenic can result in skin disorders, an increased risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and several types of cancer, according to the CDC.
Cadmium, meanwhile, is another naturally occurring element used in products such as batteries, pigments, metal coatings, and plastics but also found in plant and animal foods, according to the CDC.
When consumed in large amounts, cadmium can cause stomach issues and when inhaled at high levels, it can lead to lung damage or death. Cadmium is considered a cancer-causing agent.
“Exposure to low levels of cadmium in air, food, water, and particularly in tobacco smoke over time may build up cadmium in the kidneys and cause kidney disease and fragile bones,” the CDC notes.
Fruit Juices, Plant-Based Milks Contain Higher Levels
In total, 7 of the 25 elements measured by researchers in their study exceeded drinking water standards in some of the drinks, including nickel, manganese, boron, cadmium, strontium, arsenic, and selenium, while lead was detected in more than 93 percent of the 60 samples, although the majority contained levels below one part per billion.
The highest level (6.3 micrograms/kg) was found in a lime sports drink, though that is still below standards for drinking water set by the EPA and the World Health Organization.
Overall, mixed fruit juices and plant-based milks, including oat and almond milk, contained higher levels of toxic metals than other drinks analyzed in the study, researchers said.
Researchers did not identify the specific brands they studied but noted that they can be purchased at local supermarkets and retail stores.
The findings of the study, titled, “Toxic metals and essential elements contents in commercially available fruit juices and other non-alcoholic beverages from the United States,” were published in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.
When people switch to drinking purified water from a comprehensive water filtration system instead of straight from the tap, they rarely consider that the toxic effects of fluoride are almost certainly still lurking within the body.
The form of fluoride added to tap water in health-altering quantities, as well as commercial products like toothpaste and your child’s fluoride treatment at conventional dentists, is a highly toxic inorganic form….a waste product of the phosphate industry. This type of fluoride also contains trace amounts of arsenic and lead. (1)
It is far different from the small amounts of naturally occurring organic fluoride in some soils from around the world.
Some of my regular readers & correspondents will be aware of my art work being exhibited recently … (having just completed my Bachelor of Maori Visual Arts degree at Putahi a Toi, Massey). For those who are interested I’m posting my work here on the site because it concerns 1080 poison.
(As good fortune would have it by the way, my two adult children, both artists in their own right, were also exhibiting at the same time in the Te Manawa Gallery in Palmerston North. The recent feature article from the Manawatu Standard will give you the background to their work also. We were all interviewed as a trio. Unfortunately my daughter’s work is now gone, some of hers is in the newspaper article).
The theme of my work is poison, in particular 1080 & arsenic, which encapsulates the ongoing issues we are facing today … well at least those of us who are concerned about the toxic chemicals that we are involuntarily immersed in daily. These two poisons interweave throughout our history, and are only two of 280-300 active pesticide ingredients registered for use in NZ (read Dr Meriel Watts’ The Poisoning of NZ, p19). The poisoning of our food, our water, our people. The arsenic episode began in the nineteenth century with what was known as the NZ Government’s ‘Sugar & Flour’ policy, where non-selling Māori were targeted with aid in the form of flour mills and other ‘goodies’ to entice them to sell their land. Subsequently the flour became poisoned (as has happened & is documented in other colonized nations) to the extent in the Upper Whanganui River there was a notable decrease in the Māori population. The poisoning was also discovered & documented by missionary Rev Richard Taylor in his journals. You can read about it in David Young’s Woven by Water. It is also of course in the oral histories of the River & was spoken about in the Treaty hearings. Tariana Turia (former politician, co-leader of the Māori Party) also wrote about this in the Taranaki Star at the passing of Sir Archie Taiaroa, from the River. Sir Archie had wanted the stories to be made known, saying that Māori were forced to rely on flora and fauna to avoid being poisoned. My great uncle from the Whanganui River died of suspected poisoning. What a damning episode to the record of a so called ‘Christian’ nation. Civilizing so called ‘savages’? It is very clear who were the savages. And so it goes on today with the systematic dropping into our environment, the deadly ecotoxin called 1080.
On this theme I created an assemblage, after the work of indigenous Australian artist Tony Albert, detailing the current poisoning of our waterways and food by the aerial 1080 program operating here in Aotearoa (NZ). In my research on that I have seen testimony of concerned Whanganui people subject to aerial drops who saw incidences of miscarriages & cancer immediately after one. Like the cancer clusters around the cell towers, the authorities of course deny all of this. Dr Peter Scanlon (late) detailed that there have been little if any studies on the effects of 1080 on the unborn. Remember the post about how two midwives advised their pregnant patients to leave town when they heard of an imminent 1080 drop? I would certainly be erring on the side of safety & leaving also were I in their position.
Returning to the assemblage it contains images I’ve used with the permission of the donor* featuring the 2018 hikoi with Emile Leaf & Alan Gurdon. The basic message is … ‘Kāti te paitini haere i ā tātou kai!’ … ‘stop poisoning our food!’ It also features the assimilation drive of the colonists who desired land & and an eventual absorption of Māori into the white race. Well documented if you search … Angela Ballara’s ‘Proud to be White’ is a good start. The newspaper archives she cites speak volumes. Wiping out an ethnic group is technically called genocide however that is well nigh a dirty word in many circles today.
Below is the final gallery version.
Te Kaupapa Here mō te Parāoa me te Huka| The Flour and Sugar Policy – Artist: Pam Vernon, Te Atihaunui-a-Pāpārangi
Description: Governor Grey’s 1840s policy of aid and education saw the provision of many flour mills in NZ including along the Whanganui River. Matahiwi’s Kawana mill was named after him. David Young records in Woven by Water (p 49-50) the rapid decline in population on the upper river and the alleged systematic poisoning of non-selling hapū there. The government policy therefore became known as the ‘sugar & flour policy’. Land alienation was further fast tracked via The Native Land Court, with depopulation of Māori occurring via land wars, the introduction of muskets and European diseases. Te reo Māori was banned in schools and the assimilation agenda continued into the twentieth century (the Hunn Report,1960).
Part of the assemblage is this Biblical scripture taken from Matthew , translated it means: “…for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known” referring to the secret poisoning of Māori who would not sell their lands.
There is another scripture under the visible one (second ‘page’) that quotes Isaiah 26:21, “See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed on it; the earth will conceal its slain no longer.
The image below is also part of the assemblage detailing what a former NZ Premier John Ballance had to say about Māori. He was called a ‘nation builder’.
John Ballance, dubbed a ‘nation builder’ is renowned for his quote “the only good Māori is a dead one” currently in place of honour outside the Whanganui District Council buildings
The work below titled ‘Ekoruhe 20:13 | Exodus 20:13’ is an installation featuring three flour bags. I was told years ago by a kuia in our home town that the flour bags marked for poisoning had a red circle on them. I’ve taken artistic license to add red circles to the bag marked ‘paraoa’ (flour), although I am unsure how the red circle originally looked.
Description: “Kaua e patu” (do not kill), are words from the Bible, the book brought here by the missionaries. Governor Grey’s Flour and Sugar policy was said to be partly an attempt to reduce Māori ‘rebellion’ against land acquisitions, targeting areas where he hoped to acquire land. With the alleged poisoning of Māori, they were forced to use their knowledge of flora and fauna to avoid death. Used globally to this day, the destruction of indigenous food sources on colonial fronts is a time-worn tactic. Currently, another poison is being dropped into our waterways, contaminating both our water & our wild food.
The work below titled ‘E Paitini ana i te Whenua me te Wai | Poisoning the Land & the Water’ speaks for itself.
Description: For over 50 years, 1080 poison, a class 1A ecotoxin with no antidote, banned in most countries, has been dropped regularly onto NZ soil, currently at amounts of 4,000 tonnes per annum, enough to kill 60 million people. The Government recently changed legislation so that it can drop 1080 into the waterways without a resource consent, excluding the operation from Resource Management Act protection. A retired NZ Doctor recently warned that if you die from 1080 poisoning, nobody will know because Doctors are bullied by the MOH into not testing for it.
Below is the work titled E Paitini ana i ngā Manu| Poisoning the Birds. This also speaks for itself.
E Paitini ana i ngā Manu| Poisoning the Birds, Artist: Pam Vernon Te Atihaunui-a-Pāpārangi
Description: It’s claimed by DoC that 1080, a class 1A ecotoxin targets pests, however, originally an insecticide, 1080 kills all oxygen breathing animals and organisms (Dr M Watts 2010). A 2002 Otago 1080 drop killed an estimated 10,000 non-target birds. Over 5 years, of 89 dead tagged kiwi in the Tongariro Forest, none were tested for 1080. In 1984 Brodifacoum exterminated Tawhitinui Island’s entire weka population.
The bird image is from a carved kōkako from Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui’s house, Huriwhenua, at Ranana on the Whanganui River. It’s speculated it may symbolize the raven sent forth from Noah’s ark (David Young, Woven by Water).
Finally is the work titled St Joseph’s Church & Convent at Hiruhārama. Hiruhārama is on the Whanganui River, home of the pictured Catholic mission presence and Sister Aubert.
St Joseph’s Church & Convent at Hiruhārama . Artist: Pam Vernon Te Atihaunui-a-Pāpārangi
Description: Patiarero on the Whanganui River was re named Hiruhārama (Jerusalem) by missionary Reverend Richard Taylor in the 1850s, as were many other Whanganui River settlements. In 1892, Suzanne Aubert (known as Mother Mary Joseph) established the congregation of the Sisters of Compassion, a charitable and religious order, where they cared for abandoned children. Their presence is still there today.
(Thanks to the Sisters of Compassion for permission to use their photograph).
Thanks also to Rere Tihema for the use of his protest images.
The exhibition will remain up until February so if you are in the Palmerston North area over the holiday break you can see it at Te Manawa.
I acknowledge all the kaiako at Putahi a Toi Massey & in particular Kura Te Waru Rewiri from whom I’ve learned so much. My learning is a journey that’s still in progress.
And finally, a correction regarding the Standard article. This is a misunderstanding by the writer who assumed I was from Patiarero going presumably from my painting the Hiruhārama image. I whakapapa to the River through my father’s side (see ‘about the author’ at the main menu) … I am unsure which is our marae however. Still researching that. Apologies.
Currently, NZ wide, we are having many a debacle over our water and what it contains. Not too long ago we looked into testing our drinking water for glyphosate – it was going to cost us NZ$500+ !! The adders of these chemicals sure make testing cost prohibitive. Instead we pay big dollars for filters to extract the stuff. Facebook is chock full of discussions and pages on water : its sale offshore at bargain prices, its poisoning by DC’s addition of chemicals, its contamination by deadly bugs enough to recently cause the death of two people, the contamination of public waterways by the indiscriminate dispersal of toxic 1080 and the list goes on. So here we have the addition of fluoride, a known neurotoxin, into our drinking water, and this lab analysis reveals even more than fluoride. Lead, Arsenic, Barium and Aluminium (found in the brains of Alzheimers affected people)!
Fluoride bonds with aluminum in drinking water to form a strong complex. As they combine, fluoride can basically serve as a channel for aluminum to enter the brain and the bones. This welcomes osteotoxicity and neurodegeneration as seen in Alzheimer’s disease … Dr Mercola
Please filter it out. Purchase a good quality filter for your house and/or a distiller for your drinking water. These chemicals in a hot water shower are easily absorbed into your bloodstream, more easily than via your stomach in drinking water. We are not being told about this and are left largely to our own devices in terms of testing and purifying. Educate yourself and protect your families. The corporation will not. Their one priority, their legal mandate even, is profits not people. And your councils remember, are companies. Search on Dun and Bradstreet’s website and see for yourself.
See our Fluoride/Water pages for more info & links, &/or search categories for further related articles (at left of any page).
Consider liking our FB page &/or following our blog, and do spread the word on all the untruths we have been told!
Natural News exclusive: Fluoride used in U.S. water supplies found contaminated with lead, tungsten, strontium, aluminum and uranium “We now have irrefutable scientific proof that the sodium fluoride used in U.S. water supplies is contaminated with toxic elements, heavy metals and other elements which have radioactive isotopes (strontium and uranium) that are present in the environment at trace levels.
The presence of these elements in water fluoridation chemicals cannot be refuted by any informed person, as the evidence is easily confirmed by any competent laboratory running ICP-MS instrumentation.
We also know that U.S. cities which foolishly engage in water fluoridation almost never test their raw materials for heavy metals contamination. Read More
Fluoride is a neurotoxic chemical waste byproduct that damages bones and brain function “(NaturalNews) An estimated 200 million people around the world are being unanimously medicated without consent. Many water sources around the world are intentionally tainted with fluoride byproducts because they are believed to provide a medical benefit. According to the CDC, “community water fluoridation has been a safe and healthy way to effectively prevent tooth decay.”
These chemical compounds are byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry and can even contain traces of lead, arsenic and mercury. Fluoride is also used in pesticides and antidepressant medications. It’s even used in rat poison…. Read More
I spotted this today on Facebook. Anybody who thinks this is normal aircraft contrail activity, think about it. Aircraft flying from A to B don’t make these kinds of patterns up there!
People have analyzed these trails – check out what they found in California:
“Open air Chemtrail spraying operations are now live in California (all 50 states and all NATO countries). Independent analysis of chemtrail fallout has identified many toxic chemicals including;
Aluminum Oxide Particles, Arsenic, Bacilli and Molds, Barium Salts, Barium Titanates, Cadmium, Calcium, Chromium, Desiccated Human Red Blood Cells, Ethylene Dibromide, Enterobacter Cloacal, Enterobacteriaceae, Human white Blood Cells-A (restrictor enzyme used in research labs to snip and combine DNA), Lead, Mercury, Methyl Aluminum, Mold Spores, Mycoplasma, Nano-Aluminum-Coated Fiberglass, Nitrogen Trifluoride, Known as CHAFF), Nickel, Polymer Fibers, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Pseudomonas Florescens, Radioactive Cesium, Radio Active Thorium, Selenium, Serratia Marcscens, Sharp Titanium Shards, Silver, Streptomyces, Stronthium, Sub-Micron Particles, (Containing Live Biological Matter), Unidentified Bacteria, Uranium, Yellow Fungal Mycotoxins.”
“If you drink alcoholic beverages on occasion, wine could arguably be described as one of the “healthier” options. Red wine, in particular, is rich in antioxidants called polyphenols, including resveratrol.
Unfortunately, researchers have uncovered a problem in wine that has recently plagued other foods like apple juice and rice – high, potentially dangerous, levels of arsenic.
Concerning Levels of Arsenic Detected in Popular Wines
A class-action lawsuit filed in California states that wine drinkers have become “unwitting ‘guinea pigs’ of arsenic exposure,”2 after tests showed levels up to four and five times the maximum amount the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows for drinking water.3“
Other headings include:
What Are the Health Risks of Inorganic Arsenic?
Food Is the Largest Source of Arsenic Exposure for Most People
Is US Rice Riskiest of All?
Arsenic Has Also Been Detected in Apple Juice
Beer and Drinking Water May Also Contain Arsenic
Arsenic Has Even Been Fed to Chickens
How to Protect Yourself and Your Family from Arsenic Exposure
Unfortunately, researchers have uncovered a problem in wine that has recently plagued other foods like apple juice and rice – high, potentially dangerous, levels of arsenic.
Environmental Health Watch NZ 
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