Here’s why you shouldn’t freak out about lead in your cinnamon

Consumer Reports on Thursday reported the concentration of lead it found in 36 ground cinnamon products, leading to a round of startling headlines. The testing is particularly nerve-racking given that it closely follows the tragic poisoning of at least 519 US children, who were exposed to extremely high levels of lead from purposefully tainted cinnamon in applesauce snack pouches. With that horrifying event in mind, parents are likely primed to be alarmed by any other lead findings in cinnamon. So, how concerning were the concentrations Consumer Reports found? And does one need to strictly adhere to the limits the organization recommends? By my calculations, not very and probably not. It's really not an alarming report. Similar to the outlet's chocolate testing before it, the lead concentrations found in cinnamons were largely within standard ranges. In all, the report is more of a reminder that trace amounts of heavy metals are present in various common foods. And such watchdog testing can play a crucial role in keeping consumers safe, especially with underfunded and underpowered regulators. Before I go into the data, I'll be upfront with my conflict of interest here: I love cinnamon about as much as I love chocolate, which is to say: a lot. I can't imagine fall or holidays without heavily cinnamoned treats. And if you believe that cinnamon isn't a verb, you are incorrect (at least in my book). Still, my love of this tree-bark spice could certainly be shaken by my healthy aversion to neurotoxic things, especially with a small child at home gobbling up my baked goods. That's why I dug in and did the math—and I'm happy to show my work.

Regulated concentrations

So, what did Consumer Reports (CR from here) find? The company collected three samples of each of the 36 products from grocery stores, specialty/international food shops, and online sellers. Then, they sent them off to a commercial lab for testing and reported back the average concentrations of lead in parts per million (ppm), which is equivalent to milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg). CR judged the results by a threshold level of 1 ppm, which is the concentration at which the state of New York will issue a recall for a spice (currently, at least, they have proposed lowering it). It's important to note that, even at the current 1 ppm threshold, New York is an outlier. As CR notes, New York is the only state to have such a threshold. The Food and Drug Administration doesn't have a clear cut-off, but recent warnings from the agency were all regarding products that had lead concentrations of more than 2 ppm, not 1 ppm. The FDA also notes that the international food standard-setting body, Codex Alimentarius Commission, sets a limit for bark spices at 2.5 ppm. Further, the European Union set the maximum allowable lead concentration for bark spices at 2 ppm, according to regulations set in 2021 (PDF). Despite the unusually low threshold, CR highlighted 12 products—mostly uncommon brands—that wouldn't make it in the Big Apple. Of those, only three products were above the 2 ppm threshold that would have drawn the eyes of FDA and European Union regulators. The two brands behind the two highest readings (Paras at 3.52 ppm and EGN at 2.91 ppm) indicated to CR that they would voluntarily recall their products. The other product that came in above 2 ppm was Mimi's Products cinnamon, with an average of 2.03 ppm. CR data shows that only one of the three samples was above 2 ppm (with readings of 1.97 ppm, 2.16 ppm, and 1.97 ppm). That said, concentration thresholds for the purposes of regulatory recalls are one thing. Other things—likely to be far more relevant to consumers—are how much cinnamon people actually eat and what the maximum safe amount of lead is. So, what are those?

Finding your limits

If you ask health experts or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you'll likely hear back that no level of lead is known to be safe. However true that is, trace levels of lead are unavoidable; they naturally occur in a wide variety of foods we eat. So, what is a practical limit? The CR report doesn't clearly say what it used for its limit, though it's mentioned in the linked document on its methods. The report does, however, include this startling quote regarding the 12 products with concentrations over 1 ppm: "Just a quarter teaspoon of any of those products has more lead than you should consume in an entire day, says James Rogers, PhD, the director of food safety research and testing at CR." The maximum amount CR is using here is a very conservative threshold set by California, another state outlier. The limit is 0.5 micrograms per day, which is the "Maximum Allowable Dose Levels" (MADL) set by California's Proposition 65. If you'll recall from the chocolate testing, MADLs are calculated by looking at the most sensitive toxicology studies on a potentially harmful substance, determining the level of exposure at which there is no detectable harm—aka the NOEL for "No Observable Effect Level"—and then dividing the NOEL by 1,000. So, a MADL is one-thousandth the level at which there is no observable harm. The FDA, meanwhile, takes a different approach with its limit, called the Interim Reference Level. This is an FDA estimate based on the CDC's threshold for a concerning level of lead in a child's blood, set at 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of whole blood (µg /dL). This is the blood-level threshold at which the CDC would recommend a child be monitored for lead exposure. With that, the FDA estimated how much lead a child would have to eat to get to that 3.5 µg /dL blood level—and then it divided it by 10 to have a safety margin. The FDA's IRL for a child is 2.2 micrograms of lead per day. For a person who is pregnant, the FDA IRL is four times that, at 8.8 micrograms per day.

The math

So how much cinnamon would you have to eat to get to those? I'm going to use the CR testing results of Penzeys cinnamon as an example—for somewhat selfish reasons. I love Penzeys' spices, particularly the company's cinnamons. But also, Penzeys fell somewhat in the middle of the pack, and it conveniently lists the volumes and weights of its products. I typically buy a half-cup jar of Penzeys' cinnamon, which is a blend of its country-origin cinnamons. That half cup is 1.7 ounces. CR's testing indicates that the cinnamon has a concentration of 0.37 ppm, which is equivalent to 0.37 mg/kg. And CR says one should only have a half teaspoon a day based on California's MADL. So, let's do the math. Assuming that a quarter teaspoon is a serving of cinnamon, there are 96 servings in that half-cup jar: 0.5 cups = 24 teaspoons * 4 = 96 quarter-teaspoon servings. Those 96 servings collectively weigh 1.7 ounces, which is 0.048 kg. So a single serving of cinnamon weighs 0.0005 kg (0.048/96 = 0.0005) Now, let's make the concentration of lead a little easier to work with, converting milligrams to micrograms because that's what the FDA's and California's limits use. To do this, we multiply by 1,000. 0.37 mg/kg * 1,000 = 370 micrograms/kg And we're just eating a serving, not a whole kilogram. So then we multiply by the weight of the serving, 0.0005 kg. 370 micrograms/kg * 0.0005 kg And that equals: 0.185 micrograms of lead in each quarter-teaspoon serving of Penzeys cinnamon.

The bottom lines

So, for children to reach the FDA's 2.2 microgram IRL, they would have to eat 11.89 quarter-teaspoon servings of Penzeys cinnamon in a day, which is roughly a tablespoon. To get to California's MADL, they would have to eat 2.7 servings, which CR apparently rounded down to 2. At this point, I'm feeling pretty good about my favorite cinnamon roll recipe, which calls for 1.5 tablespoons of cinnamon in making 12 rolls. That works out to 1.5 quarter-teaspoon servings per roll. But, of course, let's not forget that the FDA's IRL is around 10-fold lower than what it would take to push blood lead levels to the threshold the CDC would find concerning. So, if one was a terrible parent, one could feed their kid, let's say 9.5 times that—more than the entire half-cup jar of cinnamon—in a single day and still may not raise any red flags at the doctor's office, perhaps except for extremely fragrant bowel movements. And, for a pregnant person to reach the FDA's 8.8 microgram IRL, the person would have to eat 47.6 servings in a day, which is nearly a quarter cup.

The extremes

Now let's look at the cinnamon with the higher levels of lead in the CR testing batch, starting with the highest: Paras with 3.52 ppm. Assuming the weight of a quarter-teaspoon of that cinnamon is about the same as Penzeys' cinnamon, a single serving of Paras would be 1.76 micrograms per serving. It would take 1.25 servings for a child to reach FDA's IRL. If you got a product that was right at the EU's concentration threshold of 2 ppm, that would be 1 microgram per serving, so a child would hit the FDA's limit with 2.2 servings. To put this in even better perspective, let's look at the lead concentrations in the apple sauce pouches with the lead-tainted cinnamon that poisoned children nationwide. The FDA tested samples of the tainted cinnamon directly, with the highest result being a terrifying 5,110 ppm. A single quarter-teaspoon of that cinnamon would deliver 2,555 micrograms of lead. FDA testing of the applesauce pouches, meanwhile, found lead levels of 2.18 ppm. But, of course, with the applesauce, children weren't just eating a quarter teaspoon. The servings were the whole pouches. Eating a 2.5-ounce applesauce pouch with a lead concentration of 2.18 ppm would deliver a dose of 154.5 micrograms of lead. The gulf between that and what CR is reporting for common, grocery-store cinnamon brands is massive. So, take what you will from the CR report. But, as a parent, a cinnamon fan, and an avoider of neurotoxic metals, I can report that I will not be changing my fall and holiday baking plans.