Nut and Seed Butters, Other
Tree-nut and seed butters not in the peanut-butter or sunflower-seed-butter rows: almond butter, cashew butter, tahini (sesame), hazelnut butter, walnut butter, pecan butter, pistachio butter, mixed-nut butters. Clean baseline of the Row 14 / Row 15 / Row 16 clean-contaminated triplet: peanut butter (row 15) and sunflower seed butter (row 16) are split out as separate contaminated rows by inheritance from rows 10 and 13.
This page is a Step 0 lock scaffold for Cat 4 Row 14. Literature evidence will be populated as routed source pages accumulate per the synthesis workflow in CLAUDE.md Part 9. The Step 0 lock document at Category4_Step_0_Output_LOCKED.md is the canonical reference for the row’s clean-vs-contaminated framing and platform attribution.
Who this page is for
Brand legal teams evaluating HMTc Cat 4 certification for the Nut and Seed Butters, Other row need to know what the cited literature reports per panel metal, what the applicable regulatory caps are, and how this row relates to its clean-contaminated pair (when applicable). Retailer compliance teams stocking the produce, dried-goods, and snack aisles need the row-level assortment-eligibility view. HMT&C certification thresholds for products in this row are developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this page.
Methodology
This page reports what the cited sources say about heavy-metal concentrations in the Nut and Seed Butters, Other row. Speciation is non-substitutable per CLAUDE.md Part 14 (iAs vs tAs, MeHg vs tHg, Cr-VI vs total Cr). Basis is preserved (as-sold or as-consumed depending on the product form). Non-detect handling follows each source’s convention. Pooling avoided across LOD/LOQ, period, geography, and analytical-basis differences. HMT&C certification thresholds for products in this row are developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this page; this public page reports literature evidence only.
Cat 4 lock empirical basis: Pass 2 occurrence-data extraction from the heavymetalindex.com wiki corpus (build claude/zealous-bhabha-d422c9, 896 source pages). The Step 0 lock document at Category4_Step_0_Output_LOCKED.md records the splitting decisions and platform attributions; this row inherits its scope from that document.
Pair relationship
This is the clean-baseline row of a Cat 4 clean-contaminated split. The contaminated counterparts are Row 15 (Peanut Butter), Row 16 (Sunflower Seed Butter). The Step 0 lock documents the categorical metal-load difference attributable to the contaminated row’s platform ingredient(s); the clean baseline row certifies against limits set to genuinely clean-achievable levels independent of the platform.
Literature Evidence Summary
Pending: regenerated by tools/evidence/apply-product-hmtc-evidence-summaries.mjs once sources route to this row and the pooling engine emits aggregate rows. Row 14 of the Cat 4 Step 0 lock is currently in scaffold state pending corpus routing of Cat 4 papers (892 source pages in the corpus as of 2026-05-16, ~52 of 128 Cat 4 cells have usable literature evidence occurrence data per the Pass 2 report).
Source Evidence Inventory
_Hand-curated section. Populated by the synthesis pass as Cat 4 sources route to this row. Initial scaffold state: zero contributing sources. The Cat 4 corpus search prioritizes sources reporting concentration data on the specific commodity in this row; broad-scope produce surveys are filed under the master.
Broad Product Context: Author-Scope Index
Pending: regenerated by tools/evidence/apply-product-broad-context.mjs once broad-scope Cat 4 sources route to this page.
Federal/Regulatory Limits vs Field Findings
Pending. Cat 4 regulatory landscape: Codex GSCTFF and EU Regulation 2023/915 set finished-product limits on fruits and vegetables (Pb, Cd) and on specific commodities (e.g., spinach Cd at 0.20 mg/kg per eu-2023-915); FDA Closer-to-Zero applies to infant fruit purées (Cat 1, not Cat 4) but informs the regulatory baseline; California Prop 65 covers cumulative Pb/Cd exposure across produce categories. Awaiting agency-page ingest.
Levers to reduce contamination
The Cat 4 Step 0 lock framework distinguishes lower-contamination row produce/seed rows from contaminated-platform commodity rows (where species or production system carries elevated metal load by characteristic). For this row, the levers below are ordered by impact magnitude per the literature evidence base; sourcing-and-agronomic levers dominate the per-product metal load, with processing-and-formulation levers offering additional reduction.
- Maintain the clean-baseline commodity choice. The Row 14 clean baseline exists precisely because alternative commodities (without the platform load) are commercially available within the same product class. Brands certifying this row commit to NOT using the contaminated variant’s ingredient class as a substitute.
- Sourcing-level controls: origin region, soil-Cd or paddy-iAs pre-screening, supplier specification.
- Agronomic levers: soil amendments, water management, cultivar selection.
- Processing levers where applicable: washing, peeling, blanching for fresh-cut and frozen formats.
- Testing/QC levers: lot-level ICP-MS on raw commodity and finished product.
How standards math uses this page
The percentile arithmetic that informs HMTc Cat 4 thresholds for this row lives on the staff Standards Workbench (data/workbench/standards/nut-seed-butters-other.md, to be generated). This public page reports literature evidence; the workbench applies the Cat 4 methodology (which includes the literature evidence occurrence-data-driven derivation and below-LOQ regulatory-floor fallback per the Step 0 lock) to produce candidate threshold values. The gap between literature evidence and HMTc thresholds is named honestly on the workbench, not hidden.
Historical recalls and enforcement
Cat 4 (produce, nuts, seeds) regulatory enforcement intersects two domains: heavy-metal contamination (the focus of this row) and microbial contamination (FDA recall notices for E. coli/Salmonella/Listeria in fresh produce, a separate concern). FDA Total Diet Study and Pesticide Data Program surveillance reports establish the heavy-metal occurrence baseline (FDA 2022). State-level Cd-in-leafy-greens enforcement has been active in California under Prop 65; the related Mateel Environmental settlement framework has shaped compliance practice. Per CLAUDE.md Part 12, individual brand recall actions are not enumerated here.
Sources
Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.
| # | Citation | Year | Type | Used on this page for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Potortì et al. 2026. Chemical Composition and Nutritional Quality of Commercial Tahini, Applied Sciences | 2026 | Peer-reviewed | IT/TR/IL Pb, Cd, tAs, tHg, Ni occurrence in Seven commercial tahini brands purchased online for Italian market in 2025, from Turkey (T-1), Israel (T-2), Germany (T-3),… (n=7) |
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.