Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Having previously attested to the product’s safety, the Food and Drug Administration is now considering guidelines to limit the amount of harmful arsenic in apple juice.
The FDA currently does not regulate arsenic levels in fruit juices. But recent published reports showing just how much inorganic (harmful) arsenic is in apple- and grape-juice products seemed to cause an about-face by the agency.
Consumer Reports tested nearly 90 samples of apple and grape juice from stores and found all of them contained discernible amounts of arsenic, most of which was the inorganic variety. About 10% contained arsenic levels that exceeded the government’s drinking-water limit of 10 parts per billion (ppb).
The FDA’s own testing of 160 apple juice samples between 2005 and 2011 revealed that more than 12% had arsenic levels above 10 ppb—and 5% had levels above 23 ppb.
–Noel Brinkerhoff
There's Arsenic in Your Kids' Apple Juice (by Tom Philpott, Mother Jones)
Arsenic in Your Juice (Consumer Reports)
FDA Apple Juice Arsenic Guidelines Expected (by Mark Astley, Food Quality News)
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