Overview

Ingredient pages trace heavy-metal contamination to the raw materials that carry it into finished products. Where a product page asks how much lead is in infant rice cereal, an ingredient page asks how much rice itself contributes and why: the uptake pathway that concentrates the metal in the crop or tissue, the concentration ranges reported across sources and varieties, how milling, refining, or cooking raises or lowers them, and which downstream products inherit the risk. The pages are organized into fourteen food groups, from fruits and vegetables through grains, nuts and seeds, and fish and seafood, to dairy, beverages, and prepared foods.

Each page carries a structured contamination profile that the product catalogue and the future consumer app draw on directly, so an ingredient is described once and reused everywhere it appears. The evidence is reported as the literature supports it, with data gaps named rather than smoothed over. Begin here when a question starts with a raw material; begin at Metals when it starts with a contaminant, or Products when it starts with a finished item.

Food groups

The food groups below open onto the individual ingredient pages.