White rice cooked for the first time in new aluminium pots contained up to 305 micrograms of lead per kilo, and khichuri up to 420. The US FDA's reference level for lead in food for babies and young children is 10 micrograms a kilo. The joint study by icddr,b and Stanford University was published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
The researchers tested seven used pots from Bangladeshi households and 20 new ones bought in the market. Lead leaching was highest in the first few uses and then fell, but not to a safe level, and old pots can also leach. Locally made pots melted down from old scrap metal have come forward as the likely reason.
Scrubbing a new pot with steel wool put about five times more lead into food than not scrubbing it, and metal spatulas raised it too. Dr Jesmin Sultana of icddr,b advises avoiding steel wool and sour or acidic dishes, and using tested pots for small children's food. These precautions do not make a contaminated pot fully safe.
Dr Jenna Forsyth, director of Stanford's Project Unleaded, said an estimate based on how much rice rural children eat suggests a child could take in more than five times the FDA's daily reference level from such pots. The estimate comes from a model, not from blood or body samples. The World Health Organization says no level of lead in the blood is known to be safe.
Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman of icddr,b called on the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority and BSTI to set and enforce a lead standard for cookware.
The researchers say this is a small laboratory study, so it does not settle the question for every pot on the market, and more research is needed.
Source: Channel i Online
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