We’ve been eating candy with lead

Carrie points to an article in the Orange County Register reporting that lots of Mexican candy has lead in it. One of the candies in Carrie’s graphic looked familiar, so I clicked on the link and saw that I’ve eaten a lot of these candies! I actually have some in a jar in my office and have been giving them out to students!

The Register article focuses on Mexico, but I’ve seen these candies in sale in Guatemala also. According to the article, the chili powder in the candies and the ink in the wrappers is contaminated with lead. Pretty scary, especially considering that my in-laws used to eat these as kids, and we still get them occasionally as treats.

1 thought on “We’ve been eating candy with lead

  1. This just reminded me of the nation-wide scare of food of red color across China a couple of months ago. Food chains such as KFC have been found using chilly powders or paste that contain some industrial red dyes. See the link.

    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/

    I don't think Mexican candies are the only things affected. If you google "red dye, lead, food", you will find a lot of articles on such scares in UK and other countries. I was wondering whether US was affected when I first read news on this topics months ago. I thought if US had such an issue, it must have been in the news. Maybe it is not the case this time.

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