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March 22, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
22:44
Health Ranger decimates false argument of "naturally occurring" heavy metals in foods
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Hi, this is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, with an interesting presentation covering the false argument that all heavy metals found in foods are so-called naturally occurring.
Yeah, interesting, huh?
Well, I'm the research director, I'm a food scientist, and a food activist at naturalnews.com.
And one thing that we're hearing now, ever since we started releasing heavy metals data on foods and superfoods and all kinds of different products, is the first answer from most companies is that, well, Those numbers don't mean anything because all these heavy metals found in foods are naturally occurring, they say.
So let's actually take a look at that.
In fact, let's demolish that false argument.
And we'll start right here.
Industrial pollution puts heavy metals into the water supply and into the atmosphere.
Aluminum, 1.97 million pounds a year just from power plants, according to the EPA. Arsenic, lead, manganese, mercury, and other things are released.
We are, of course, past the industrial revolution age.
We're into, you know, the information revolution age, but we still have a lot of industry that's very, very dirty.
And so practically every soil on the planet has been touched in some way by industrial pollution.
So the phrase naturally occurring almost doesn't even apply anymore, but some areas obviously have more pollution than others.
And how does that work?
Because industrial pollution can travel very, very far.
In fact, right now in North America, we are being inundated with emissions from China.
China's export industries, this is a quote from the New York Times, emit toxic substances that are carried across the Pacific Ocean and contribute to air pollution in the western United States.
And there's the link for that story.
There's more.
Mercury from China's coal-fired power plants end up falling on the soil of forests in the Pacific Northwest and across the USA, in fact.
And then when those forests burn, they emit mercury.
In fact, about 44% of the mercury that's found in the environment in North America comes from forest fires and it's really second-hand mercury that was acquired from other industrial pollution sources that then blanket North America with mercury in virtually all soils which are exposed to the environment.
So, some people are arguing that, well, our foods are grown out in the country, in Cambodia or Vietnam or China or wherever, and it's pristine and it's beautiful, it's a landscape, it's like a postcard and it's green.
They say, well, there's no industrial pollution anywhere nearby.
Well, if China's pollution can make it to North America, it can certainly make it a couple hundred miles away.
So let's actually take a look at how that works.
Industrial pollution.
These are some of the sources here.
You can see industry releases pollution into the air.
And then you have vertical mixing.
You have chemical transformations.
You have cloud processes and dispersion.
And then you have rain and you have aquifers and aquatic ecosystems.
And so all of these sources of industry and fire, we just talked about forest fires, and transportation and cities and so on, it's releasing mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, all these things into the air.
It's being dispersed across the world and it's being deposited On land and agricultural areas where food is grown.
It's also then falling into drinking water systems and more importantly water irrigation systems that irrigate food products that are then sold as foods or superfoods or dietary supplements.
This is not a natural...
This pollution here, this is not naturally occurring pollution.
This is industrial pollution that is man-made.
So before the age of industry, these pollutants did not exist in the environment at any substantial level.
So it's not naturally occurring.
It's environmental pollution.
Let's take a look at another chart here.
This is even better.
Pollutant sources transport transformation, deposition, and effects.
I kind of like this chart, very informative.
So you've got all these things coming off of farms and industry power plants, talks about nitrogen oxides, mercury, but there are other things, aluminum, lead, cadmium, things like that, all going into the atmosphere and then being transported.
Thousands of miles.
It can go from one continent to another continent.
So the things that are being emitted by the power plants in China end up being deposited on the mountains in Colorado.
And then the snowpack, when it melts in the spring and summer, that water flows downstream and it feeds the farms in Colorado.
I'm just using that as an example.
Actually, all mountains are affected.
Even Mount Shasta in North California And then these heavy metals end up in the water that's irrigating the strawberries grown in California.
Or the apple trees in Washington State.
And so there's pollution everywhere, but there's more pollution in some places than others.
And that's why we should, of course, seek food that has been grown in areas with less pollution, so that that food has lower concentrations of heavy metals.
So this idea that's being pushed right now that metals, let's go back to the beginning, the false argument that heavy metals are naturally occurring, let's really look at this rationally, logically, and scientifically.
When these metals are released from these industry power plants and they start moving up into the atmosphere, they are pollution, right?
Everybody agrees with that.
That's pollution.
Aluminum in the air.
Mercury in the air.
Rising up into the atmosphere.
It's pollution.
It's being moved from continent to continent.
It's still pollution.
It mixes with the clouds.
It mixes with the rain.
It mixes with the atmosphere.
Now it falls onto the mountain.
And according to some of these deniers, the minute that pollution hits soil, suddenly it's, quote, naturally occurring.
You got that?
So how does that work?
Let's start over.
It's emitted from the power plant.
It's pollution.
It's toxic heavy metals.
It's pollution in the air.
It's pollution in the clouds.
But when it hits the soil, suddenly it's naturally occurring.
That's what they are arguing.
And it doesn't make any sense.
It's nonsense, actually.
It's not naturally occurring just because it has now touched soil.
This is actually voodoo science to believe such a thing.
Pollution does not magically change to naturally occurring at the instant that it touches soil or water.
That kind of voodoo science doesn't really happen.
It doesn't really work that way.
So the naturally occurring argument is not grounded in science.
It's being pushed actually by public relations people and marketing manipulators who are trying to manipulate the public into false and delusional beliefs.
And I call this voodoo science.
And I find it very interesting, by the way, that here I am, the health ranger who has, from time to time, attacked conventional science delusions, such as the idea that mercury in vaccines is not harmful either.
And now I find myself increasingly defending science against people who are wildly unscientific.
It's like the deeper that I get into research in the laboratory, scientific methodology, atomic spectroscopy, you know, the ICP-MS instrumentation, elemental composition, table of elements...
Chemical compounds, all these types of things, the more I find that I'm having to defend science against this voodoo science or magical thinking or very really irrational thinking, such as the idea that, oh, it's pollution here, and it's pollution here, and it's pollution here, and then magically, boom, here, it's not pollution anymore, it's naturally occurring.
So according to these PR spinsters, these heavy metals deniers, I would have to call them, this is naturally occurring lead being dumped into the water supply.
See, this is a smelting operation.
You see all that coming out of the smokestacks there?
I don't know what country this is in, but it looks like it could be somewhere in Asia, maybe even South America, perhaps.
And all this runoff here, which contains heavy metals and lead, this is now naturally occurring lead, they say.
So they could use this water to irrigate their crops and sell you foods or superfoods or dietary supplements grown in this water.
And they would say, ah, don't worry about the lead or the cadmium or the mercury or the arsenic because, hey, it's naturally occurring.
It's in the soil.
It's in the water.
It's natural.
Doesn't make sense, does it?
In fact, let's look at more science.
Now, this is some of the research that I actually conducted personally with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry instrumentation.
And I studied the lead levels in seaweed products from different regions around the world and different brand names.
And what we found...
Is that New Zealand, Wakame, from this company, Waikaitu, had actually zero detectable lead.
That's zero.
Which, actually, in our lab, that could mean...
Well, our lab can detect one part per billion or even fractions of one.
We can detect, for example, 500 parts per trillion if we want to.
But for the purposes of this chart...
We round it down to zero with anything under 10 parts per billion.
So this could be from zero to 9.999 parts per billion, but effectively that's zero.
Now, check this out down here.
This wakame seaweed from this company, Wellpac, which is based in China, I believe, and there's the lot number that we tested, well this has 0.851 parts per million lead, or 851 parts per billion.
Well now wait a minute.
According to all these apologists that we talked about here, they say all the metals that are found in foods are naturally occurring.
So, well, this lead must be naturally occurring too, right?
Well, if that's naturally occurring, then how come the wakame from New Zealand has no lead in it, zero lead?
How does that make any sense?
Well, the answer is because this seaweed is harvested from water that is contaminated with industrial pollution.
You've heard about China, I would hope, and how dirty the rivers are there and how dirty the oceans are that are near the coast because of all the rivers dumping toxic pollution into the oceans.
Hey, even the Gulf of Mexico is heavily polluted from what's coming out of North America in the rivers that dump into the Gulf.
But this New Zealand wakame, this is harvested in pristine waters.
Really pristine.
Off the coast of New Zealand.
It's not even part of the northern hemisphere, obviously.
And it has zero lead.
So it's the same plant.
It's wakame.
But how come this has zero lead and this has 0.851, which is the highest level we've ever seen in any seaweed?
How can they be different if it's all, quote, naturally occurring?
The difference is this is from polluted waters and this is from clean water.
It really is that simple.
This chart right here obliterates the false anti-science argument that all heavy metals and all foods are, quote, naturally occurring.
That's simply not true.
because there's a lot of variation depending on where they're harvested depending on the water that's used to irrigate them or the soils that they're grown in so no this is not naturally occurring lead well but i guess for those people who say that lead and cadmium and all these things are naturally occurring they must agree with monsanto because monsanto says well gmos are also natural The Naked Juice Company had to reach a class action settlement
because they were sued over their claim that their juices were all natural even though they used GMO ingredients such as genetically modified soy protein.
They lost the lawsuit and now people have been able to claim 45 bucks from PepsiCo even without proof of purchase.
But hey, maybe these people in the food industry and the natural products industry who say that all metals are naturally occurring, maybe they agree with Monsanto.
Oh, GMOs are natural too.
And I guess if that's what you really believe, then you should buy land right outside Chernobyl.
I think there's some open farmland over there in the distance.
I don't think anybody's farming there.
I mean, this place blew up in 1986 and dumped radioactive cesium-137 all over the land.
Made it a deadly place to live.
But wait a minute.
Since the cesium-137 is now in the soil, isn't it now naturally occurring?
So I guess using that logic, you could buy this forest over here, you could turn it into a farmland, you could grow rice or apples or blueberries or corn, and you could sell that to people and say, well, don't worry about the radiation.
It's all naturally occurring in the soil because it blew up and then it fell on the soil.
So now it's natural, right?
That's what they're telling us.
I guess by that same logic, this is all naturally occurring too.
These are the effects from Chernobyl.
Radioactive poisoning.
This is what happens when radioactive elements get into your soil and get into your food and then start affecting human health.
And I'm sorry this photo is so unbelievably shocking.
I'm going to change the slide.
But clearly that's not naturally occurring.
So let's get down to some common sense, shall we?
Industrial pollution is not naturally occurring.
Any company that attempts to claim that is being deceptive and dishonest.
They're trying to manipulate you into eating more heavy metals from contaminated products.
Their message is, eat more lead, because you're too stupid, they think, to know the difference between clean food and contaminated food.
So what about lead?
Is there any debate about lead being safe or dangerous?
No, not really.
Not really.
But, hey, by their logic, maybe lead and paint is also natural.
So what's the problem with children eating lead paint?
It must be perfectly safe because, well, it's natural now because it's in the walls.
Just like Chernobyl, well, cesium's in the soil, so it's got to be natural now.
Well, just like this over here, the lead dumped into the river.
It's natural now.
They must be saying, what's the big deal?
Kids eating a little lead.
What's the big deal, huh?
Yeah, really crazy, isn't it?
That's why I call it voodoo science.
In truth, the science is not debated.
Look at this.
Look at the source.
MedlinePlus Mayo Clinic.
Mayo Clinic even says vaccines are safe and GMOs are safe and artificial sweeteners are safe.
Even they say lead is poison.
Think about that.
Reduced IQ, kidney damage, hearing loss.
It's a very long list of how lead can affect human bodies.
So where's your food being grown?
Here's a rice patty.
You think, is there any lead in that rice?
In the water that's irrigating it?
Is there cadmium in it?
Is there mercury in it?
Well, you don't know by looking at the picture because it's invisible.
Let's go back up here.
Take a look.
Do you see any lead rolling down the stream here?
No, probably not.
Because it's invisible to the human eye.
That's why it's such an insidious industrial pollutant.
It's invisible.
You don't see lead falling on the mountains and rolling down the rivers and getting into all the irrigation systems that irrigate the food, whether we're talking about China or Vietnam or Japan or Taiwan or USA. It's invisible everywhere.
So, you know, just because it looks beautiful...
It looks green.
The sun is shining.
These people look like they're probably pretty happy, making some money, planting some food.
Doesn't mean there's not lead there.
You gotta test it.
You gotta use good science.
You need to sample this rice, you need to sample this water, and you need to do the test.
Guess who's doing that?
We are.
Naturalnews.com.
And labs.naturalnews.com, that's where we publish the results, right there.
Labs.naturalnews.com.
Because I say, let's clean up our food, and let's clean up our planet.
And let's not settle for this total nonsense, this false argument that all heavy metals found in foods are, quote, naturally occurring.
Please.
The argument is stupid.
It's just plain stupid.
There's no truth to it whatsoever.
And honestly, the companies that would argue this only embarrass themselves.
It's kind of like putting a post-it note on their own forehead that say, dunce.
I mean, really?
Come on.
Aren't we more intelligent than that?
I would hope so.
So, as part of the effort to help clean up our foods and clean up our planet, we're launching petitions at Natural News, and we invite you to participate in those petitions.
We've got a large number of petitions coming.
And we were inspired by Food Babe's petition, so we launched this petition, which, different topics, you know, Food Babe goes after Subway and Chick-fil-A and kind of mainstream fast food.
Well, we go after companies that we think should agree to heavy metals limits.
In natural products and dietary products and proteins and so on.
And I'm happy to say that we've launched this petition for clean protein and you can find that at naturalnews.com and I'm happy to say that several companies have already signed on to it and agreed to meet heavy metals limits and I'm very excited about that and more and more companies are joining us but you can help put polite pressure on the industry by signing this petition and looking for other petitions that we will launch at naturalnews.com.
So this is what we're about, and I know this is what many, many of our fans and followers are all about also.
We don't want to get nonsense from companies.
We don't want to eat GMOs.
We don't want to eat pesticides.
We don't want to eat bovine growth hormones in our milk.
We don't want to eat plastics, chemicals, BPA. We don't want glyphosate in our bodies.
And we don't want a bunch of BS from companies saying, oh, don't worry about that lead and cadmium and mercury.
Eat more because it's, quote, naturally occurring.
Give me a break.
It's almost comedy that they would even try to say that.
Nevertheless, they will.
So some don't know what to say.
And it's like...
You know, well, gee, our food's got a bunch of metal in it.
What do we do?
Well, let's deny it.
Yeah.
Say it's natural.
Yeah.
Yeah, just like GMOs.
It's natural.
Yeah, we'll do the same thing Monsanto does, okay?
All right.
Say it's natural.
Sorry, I'm doing a little comedy impersonations because it is comedy.
Total comedy.
Versus real science, you know?
This is what the science says about lead.
There you go.
And again, industrial pollution is not naturally occurring.
So I hope this has been useful, and I hope you pardon my satire.
I do find this really quite funny and somewhat entertaining, so I have to interject a little bit of entertainment in here.
Maybe perhaps a pathetic attempt, depending on what you think.
But nevertheless, the science is solid, and I'm very, very serious about the science.
And we've got to have a little fun in life.
We can't be, like, all serious all the time.
Nevertheless, I'm deadly serious about clean food and cleaning up our planet.
And we could really use your help.
Join.
Really, we have over a million online people now who are following our work and who are working with us in this grassroots effort for clean food.
And this petition is just one way people do that.
There are many other ways.
We've got almost one million likes on Facebook so far.
Check out our Facebook page.
Literally, almost one million likes.
Pretty big number.
And it's growing like crazy.
So we want clean food and we want a clean planet as much as possible.
And this is how we're going to do it, through grassroots activism that reminds companies to source clean materials and sell us clean products.
It's not complicated.
And also, please stop the denials.
Stop the false arguments.
Enough is enough.
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