Berger Ritchie & Gerstenberger 2013 — Lead in imported hot sauces (Clark County, Nevada)

Pilot ICP-MS study of lead in 25 imported hot sauces purchased in Clark County, Nevada. Four of 25 hot sauces (16%) exceeded 0.1 ppm Pb (the FDA action level for lead in candy, used in the study as the absence of a hot-sauce-specific standard); all four were manufactured in Mexico and contained salt. The highest single-bottle value was 0.308 µg/g (308 ppb) Pb. XRF analysis of plastic lids found Pb concentrations ranging from below the limit of detection (<6 to <13 ppm depending on lid color) to 2,028 ppm; all detected plastic-lid Pb values exceeded the FDA 7 ppm packaging-materials limit cited by the authors. Lot-variation oversampling found inconsistent Pb between and within manufacturer lots, indicating that single-bottle screening is not reliable for product surveillance. An 8-month leaching test on one bottle showed no change in syrup Pb (constant at 0.17 ppm), but the test was limited to one product and the authors note that hot sauce normally contacts the lid only intermittently. IEUBK modeling at 2 servings/day across the four >0.1 ppm products for one year predicted a 0.2–1.8 µg/dL increase in child blood lead (with the 1.0–1.8 µg/dL high end attached to a 0.230 µg/g Pb product at 15 g serving size, and the 0.5–0.9 µg/dL range attached to the highest-Pb 0.308 µg/g product at a smaller 5.4 g serving size), all below the (then-current) 10 µg/dL CDC action level used by the source.

Key numbers

Lead in hot sauces (n=25, ICP-MS, LOD 0.007 µg/g, units µg/g = ppm wet weight as-sold):

• Exceedance of 0.1 µg/g Pb: 4 of 25 (16%). All four were manufactured in Mexico, all four contained salt as an ingredient, and the four products were from four different manufacturers.
• Highest values in the initial single-bottle round: 0.21, 0.23, 0.14, and 0.17 µg/g Pb.
• Median Pb (n=25, with non-detects imputed at ½ LOD = 0.0035 µg/g): 0.030 µg/g.
• Median Pb (n=22, non-detects removed): 0.0355 µg/g.
• Pepper-type breakdown within exceedance: 2 of 4 habanero hot sauces (50%) and 1 of 3 guajillo hot sauces (33%) exceeded 0.1 µg/g Pb; chi-square test for independence found no significant association between Pb concentration and pepper type (lr = 6.59, p = 0.36).
• No significant difference in Pb by country of origin (lr = 1.12, p = 0.57), manufacturer (lr = 13.80, p = 0.61), or pH (Spearman rho = −0.08, p = 0.70).
• Country of origin distribution: 22 Mexico, 2 Guatemala, 1 Peru.

Within- and between-lot variability (oversampled exceedance products):

• Three exceedance products were oversampled across 3–5 manufacturer lots (n=5, 6, and 4 additional bottles respectively).
• One product initially measured at 0.21 µg/g Pb showed across-lot means of 0.21, 0.308, 0.121, 0.137, and 0.278 µg/g — every lot tested above 0.1 µg/g Pb. Highest single-lot mean: 0.308 µg/g.
• A second product initially at 0.23 µg/g Pb showed across-lot means of 0.088 (n=3, SD 0.122), 0.027, 0.038, and 0.018 µg/g — only the first lot’s mean approached 0.1 µg/g and the SD on that lot (0.122) indicates that one of the three replicates was substantially higher than the others; the other three lots were well below 0.1 µg/g.
• A third product initially at 0.14 µg/g Pb showed across-lot means of 0.104, 0.105 (n=2), and <0.007 (n=2) — two lots above 0.1 µg/g and one entire lot below the limit of detection.
• Lot-to-lot and within-lot variability could not be statistically characterized at this sample size; the qualitative finding is that exceedance is not consistent across or within lots of the same product, which limits the reliability of single-bottle screening.

Lead in plastic hot-sauce lids (n=24 plastic + 1 painted metal, XRF, units ppm; LOD varies by lid color and ranges <6 to <13 ppm; one white-metal lid LOD <200 ppm and excluded from statistics):

• Range: below LOD to 2,028 ppm Pb.
• Plastic lids by color (n, median, mean ± SD, max, all ppm Pb):
  • Green (n=3): median 1,092, mean 1,061.7 ± 83.7, max 1,126.
  • Orange (n=3): median 6, mean 414.2 ± 709.1, max 1,233.
  • Red (n=11): median 14, mean 686.6 ± 879.3, max 2,028.
  • White (n=2): both <LOD (<6 ppm).
  • Yellow (n=5): median 3, mean 480.4 ± 751.2, max 1,720.
• All detected plastic-lid Pb concentrations exceeded the FDA 7 mg/kg (7 ppm) standard for food packaging materials that the authors cite (FDA standard referenced via Lynch, Boatright & Moss 2000, Public Health Reports 115:537–543).
• 6 of 11 (55%) red lids and all 3 green lids exceeded 7 ppm Pb. Chi-square test by lid color: not significant (lr = 7.56, p = 0.11).
• Lid Pb concentration was not significantly related to hot-sauce Pb concentration (Spearman rho = −0.20, p = 0.354 including <LOD; rho = −0.26, p = 0.42 excluding <LOD); the direction is negative, indicating no detectable lid-to-sauce migration signal in this cross-sectional dataset.

Leaching sub-study (single product, 8-month observation):

• One hot sauce stored in a red plastic bottle (bottle Pb 411 ppm) with a green plastic lid (lid Pb 967 ppm) was retested 8 months after initial analysis. Initial syrup Pb: 0.17 µg/g. 8-month follow-up syrup Pb: 0.17 µg/g (no detectable change). Authors note that the sauce had extended contact with the bottle but not with the lid (bottles stored upright); the test does not characterize leaching during in-use inversion or upside-down storage, and the n=1 design does not permit generalization.

Hot sauce pH (n=25, AOAC Official Method 981.12, Wilcoxon vs USDA Commercial Item Description A-A-20097E medians):

• USDA Type I (hot) hot sauces (n=17): observed median 3.21 vs USDA standard median 1.6 (standard range <3.2). Wilcoxon test: z = 153.0, p < 0.0001 — Type I hot sauces in this sample did not meet the USDA pH range.
• USDA Type II (extra hot, n=2): median 3.56 vs standard median 3.05 (range 2.7–3.4). No significant difference (S = 1.5, p = 0.5).
• USDA Type III (green, n=1): observed 3.35 vs standard median 2.85 (range 2.7–3.0). No significant difference (S = 0.5, p = 1.0).
• USDA Type IV (chipotle, n=2): median 3.33 vs standard median 3.05 (range 2.9–3.2). No significant difference (S = 1.5, p = 0.5).
• USDA Type V (habanero, n=3): median 3.39 vs standard median 3.25 (range 3.0–3.5). No significant difference (S = 0, p = 1.0).
• Authors report that 64% of sampled hot sauces did not comply with USDA pH guidance overall, but the only statistically significant non-compliance was in Type I.

IEUBK childhood blood-lead modeling (US EPA IEUBK Model, dietary-only pathway, GI absorption fraction 50%, applied uniformly to children 0.5–7 years; manufacturer-declared serving sizes; 2 servings/day):

• Highest-Pb habanero product (0.140 µg/g, serving size 15 g): 4.2 µg Pb/day → predicted blood-lead increment 0.6–1.1 µg/dL at 1 year of exposure.
• Highest-Pb unspecified-pepper product (0.230 µg/g, serving size 15 g): 6.9 µg Pb/day → predicted increment 1.0–1.8 µg/dL.
• Highest-Pb chile-habanero product (0.308 µg/g, serving size 5.4 g): 3.3 µg Pb/day → predicted increment 0.5–0.9 µg/dL.
• Highest-Pb guajillo product (0.170 µg/g, serving size 4.5 g): 1.53 µg Pb/day → predicted increment 0.2–0.4 µg/dL.
• All predicted increments are below the (then-current) 10 µg/dL CDC action level for childhood blood lead. Authors caveat that hot sauce is a minor dietary item but cumulative with other lead sources (soil, dust, drinking water, other contaminated foods) and that the CDC has since moved away from a single bright-line action level toward reference-value framing (the 2013 paper precedes CDC’s 2021 reference value update; the 10 µg/dL frame is the paper’s own).

Methods (brief)

Twenty-five hot sauces (24 plastic-bottle, 1 painted-metal-lid bottle) purchased at convenience from eight Clark County retail outlets between September 2009 and January 2010. Each bottle shaken for 60 seconds to homogenize before analysis. Lead in hot sauce determined by isotope-dilution ICP-MS at Exova (Santa Fe Springs, CA): 1 g sauce digested with 1 mL HNO₃ and 3 mL HCl on a 110 °C hot block for 1 hour, followed by 1 mL 30% H₂O₂ for 1 hour, diluted to 100 g final mass with nanopure water. Quality controls: laboratory fortified blank within 80–120% recovery on every batch; 0.1 ppm terbium (mass 159) internal standard with 50–125% acceptable recovery; two external-QC duplicates sent to Exova. LOD 0.007 µg/g. Three exceedance products were subsequently oversampled (n=5, 6, and 4 additional bottles) across multiple manufacturer lots; a fourth exceedance product was not available for oversampling.

Lead in plastic lids determined by XRF (Niton Thermo Fisher XLt 797 2W). Plastic lids analyzed in bulk plastic mode for 10 s; the single painted-metal lid analyzed in metal alloy mode for 10 s. Calibration with polyethylene multi-element reference (SN PE-5483-N, Modern Analytical Techniques LLC) and metal check (180-606 batch D, MBH Analytical) before and after analysis (QC: 1040 ± 10 mg/kg Pb in polyethylene; 0.14 ± 0.01% Pb in metal check). LOD varied by individual reading: plastic lids ranged from <6 to <13 ppm; the single metal lid LOD was <200 ppm and that lid was excluded from plastic-lid statistics.

pH measured by AOAC Official Method 981.12 (pH of Acidified Foods) on a VWR SympHony SB90M5 benchtop meter calibrated with Orion 1.68/4.01/7.00 buffers (electrode slope 95.9%); duplicate measurements with ≤0.02 unit reproducibility.

IEUBK exposure modeling used the US EPA Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic Model for Lead in Children (v.2007). All non-dietary parameters (soil, dust, air, water) were set to zero; only dietary Pb from hot sauce was input. GI absorption fraction was the IEUBK default 50% for diet. Manufacturer-declared serving size and 2 servings/day were used uniformly across all age groups (0.5–1, 1–2, 2–3, 3–4, 4–5, 5–6, 6–7 years).

Statistical analyses in PASW v.19.0 (SPSS), Minitab, and SAS. Shapiro-Wilk rejected normality; non-parametric tests used (Mann-Whitney, chi-square likelihood ratio, Spearman rank correlation, Wilcoxon).

Evidence Fitness

This is a small (n=25) convenience-sample pilot study of imported hot sauces from a single US county over a 4-month purchase window. The peer-reviewed quantitative findings — Pb range below LOD to 0.308 µg/g across imported hot sauces, plastic-lid Pb range below LOD to 2,028 ppm, IEUBK-modeled increment 0.2–1.8 µg/dL at 2 servings/day — are first-look indicator data, not occurrence-distribution estimates for the imported-hot-sauce category. Lot-to-lot variability documented in the oversampling sub-study explicitly limits the inferential weight of any single-bottle measurement.

Best uses:

• Occurrence indicator that imported hot sauces (with emphasis on Mexico-manufactured product) can carry Pb at levels approaching the 100 ppb FDA-candy action level used as the operational benchmark in this study.
• Pathway-attribution context that salt and chili peppers are plausible Pb sources in this matrix (the authors do not directly attribute, but circumstantially: all four exceedance products contained salt and were Mexico-manufactured, consistent with the FDA’s mined-salt (0.1–1.5 ppm Pb) and unwashed-chili-pepper (up to 0.938 ppm Pb in chili powder) characterization).
• Packaging-context occurrence data: plastic lids carry substantial Pb (up to 2,028 ppm) even when matched to product Pb at sub-ppm levels. The 8-month single-product leaching null does not generalize.
• IEUBK-modeled exposure framing as a teaching example for how a sub-action-level food can still contribute meaningfully to total child Pb intake when consumed in cultural-staple quantities.

Not appropriate for:

• Setting a percentile-based HMTc occurrence value for hot sauces (n is too small; convenience sample; single geography; 2009–2010 vintage).
• Brand-specific claims (Part 12 firewall: this wiki page does not propagate brand-by-brand values; brand-level data from Table 1 of the source remains in the source and is not reproduced here).
• Generalizing the plastic-lid Pb finding to all hot-sauce packaging (the sample is geography- and import-channel-specific).

Implications

• Pb occurrence in imported hot sauce can approach or exceed the FDA candy-action-level (100 ppb). The authors find 16% of imported hot sauces in a small Nevada convenience sample at >100 ppb Pb, with a maximum single-bottle Pb of 308 ppb (oversample) and an initial-round high of 230 ppb. The authors recommend adopting 0.1 µg/g (100 ppb) Pb as a hot-sauce standard pending evidence for a different action level. This is the source’s own policy recommendation, recorded here as evidence of what the 2013 peer-reviewed literature was proposing; it is not a wiki-side endorsement of any specific HMTc threshold.
• Lot-to-lot variability is the dominant uncertainty. Single-bottle screening is unreliable: oversampled products show some lots above 100 ppb and others below LOD, with a within-lot SD as high as 0.122 µg/g on a 0.088 µg/g mean. Surveillance protocols and HMTc-style certification testing for this category should sample multiple lots, not single bottles.
• Plastic-lid Pb is a packaging-specific occurrence finding with a measured null on leaching. The plastic-lid Pb range (below LOD to 2,028 ppm) is large and many lids exceed the FDA 7 ppm food-packaging limit. The single-product 8-month leaching test showed no measurable migration into the syrup; the authors caveat that this is one product, one storage geometry (upright), and one duration. The lid finding is a packaging-materials concern in its own right (plastic-lid material composition; food-contact regulations) independent of the leaching question; the wiki should propagate the occurrence data to packaging pages and treat the leaching question as open.
• No statistical association between pepper type and Pb in this sample. The authors find no significant difference in Pb by pepper type (habanero, guajillo, chipotle, generic chili, unidentified). Future synthesis on chili-pepper-as-an-ingredient occurrence should not over-anchor on this paper’s small n; this paper is consistent with “Pb in hot sauce is product-and-manufacturing-driven, not pepper-cultivar-driven” but does not establish that conclusion.
• Mexico-manufactured, salt-containing product was over-represented in exceedance. All four exceedance products were Mexico-manufactured and contained salt. The pathway-attribution literature (FDA 2006 chili-powder lead characterization; Mexican mined-salt Pb range 0.1–1.5 ppm) supports unwashed-chili-pepper and mined-salt as plausible upstream sources. This is consistent with the broader Mexican-style candy / Mexican-style hot sauce Pb literature.
• IEUBK-modeled increment is below the source’s 10 µg/dL CDC action-level frame but additive on top of background. The 0.2–1.8 µg/dL modeled increment from hot sauce alone, at 2 servings/day for 1 year, sits on top of all other Pb-exposure sources a child is concurrently subject to; the source explicitly notes that “This does not include additional seasonings that contain similar ingredients that may be consumed in addition to hot sauce and environmental sources, such as soil, air, and dust.” (Note for downstream synthesis: the 10 µg/dL frame is CDC’s pre-2012 action level used by this paper; CDC moved to a 5 µg/dL reference value in 2012 and to 3.5 µg/dL in 2021. Comparisons of the modeled increment to the current reference value are downstream-synthesis work, not claims of this 2013 source.)

Provenance notes

• DOI is 10.1080/03601234.2013.774226. Article was downloaded by Moscow State Univ library on 22 July 2013, per the publisher’s download stamp on the PDF; the wiki cites the publisher landing page and the DOI rather than that download artifact.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Journal of Environmental Science and Health Part B (ISSN 0360-1234 print; 1532-4109 online), Volume 48, Issue 7, pages 530–538. License is publisher copyright; redistribution is restricted by Taylor & Francis terms and conditions. license: "publisher-copyright-taylor-francis".
• Funding and conflict of interest: not stated in the paper text. Corresponding author: Shawn L. Gerstenberger, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Nevada Las Vegas.
• Acknowledgments name Dr. Sheniz Moonie, Tracy Donnelly, and Mackenzie Burns for contributions to the manuscript.

Verification notes

• Brand-firewall posture (Part 12, strict). The source paper’s Table 1 lists 25 hot sauces by brand with manufacturer, country of origin, pepper type, pH, salt presence, lid color, lid Pb (ppm), and sauce Pb (ppm). The paper additionally names four products by brand in the oversampling and IEUBK sub-studies. Per Part 12, this wiki page does not reproduce the brand-by-brand values. All Pb numbers above are reported as category-level summaries (counts, percentages, ranges, medians) or as anonymized “highest-Pb [pepper-type] product” descriptors. Brand names are not propagated. Readers who need brand-level detail must read the source paper directly; the wiki’s role is to summarize the literature-level signal for product-category and ingredient pages.
• Methods-vendor names (Part 12 Exception 2). Vendor names are retained where they identify analytical method or reference material (Exova, Niton Thermo Fisher XLt 797 2W, VWR SympHony SB90M5, Modern Analytical Techniques LLC PE-5483-N polyethylene reference, MBH Analytical 180-606 metal-check, Orion buffer solutions). These are scientific-reproducibility identifiers, not contamination rankings, and do not violate Part 12.
• Speciation note. Lead is reported as total Pb in both hot sauce (ICP-MS) and lid (XRF) measurements. No speciation considerations apply for Pb in this matrix.
• Pb-only metal scope. The paper measures only lead. metals: [Pb] reflects that scope; the paper does not characterize Cd, As, Hg, or any other heavy metal in hot sauce, and the wiki page does not extrapolate.
• Ingredient routing. ingredients: ["[[ingredients/spices]]", "[[ingredients/salt]]"] follows the existing taxonomy. The taxonomy does not include a chili-pepper or hot-pepper ingredient slug; the SPEX 2023 hot-sauce / chili-powder source (spex2023-hot-sauce-chili-powder-metals.md) uses the same spices slug for chili powder under the herbs-and-spices parent. The 5-paper threshold for a dedicated chili-pepper ingredient page (CLAUDE.md Part 10) is not yet established; this paper is added as an aliasable entry within spices. Salt is named explicitly in 24 of 25 hot sauces and is one of the two plausible upstream Pb sources, so the salt slug is included.
• Product routing. products: ["[[products/condiments-general]]", "[[products/food-packaging-caps-closures]]", "[[products/food-packaging-plastic-tubs]]"]. There is no hot-sauce product slug; the existing SPEX 2023 hot-sauce source routes to condiments-general and this paper follows the same precedent. Plastic-lid XRF data routes to food-packaging-caps-closures; the plastic-bottle leaching observation routes to food-packaging-plastic-tubs (the closest existing slug for plastic squeeze/dispenser bottles, pending a more specific plastic-bottle / plastic-container slug).
• Matrix vocabulary. matrices: [hot-sauce, condiment, food-contact-materials, plastic-lids] captures the as-tested matrices and the packaging context. hot-sauce is used as a free-form matrix label consistent with the ingredient-vs-product taxonomy split (matrices vocabulary is not slugged).
• Jurisdictions. jurisdictions: [US, MX, GT, PE] reflects: US as the regulatory and surveillance jurisdiction of the study; Mexico as the country of origin for 22/25 products; Guatemala as the country of origin for 2/25 products; Peru as the country of origin for 1/25 products.
• Evidence-tier B rationale. Peer-reviewed quantitative ICP-MS measurement with documented QC (LFB within 80–120%, terbium internal standard 50–125% acceptable range, two external duplicates) and a published IEUBK exposure-model output. Convenience pilot n=25 from a single county over a 4-month purchase window is the primary tier-B limitation. The lot-variation sub-study explicitly demonstrates within-product variability, which is a strength for methodology assessment but limits the headline-rate interpretation.
• 2013 publication date and 10 µg/dL CDC framing. The paper uses the pre-2012 CDC 10 µg/dL action level; CDC moved to a reference value approach in 2012 (5 µg/dL) and updated to 3.5 µg/dL in 2021. The wiki retains the paper’s 10 µg/dL framing for fidelity to the source but flags the regulatory update in the Implications section so downstream synthesis does not propagate the outdated threshold without context.
• hot-sauce product slug absent from taxonomy. Surfaced for Karen’s future taxonomy-review attention. Until a dedicated slug exists, this source routes to condiments-general, which is the closest existing category. Per CLAUDE.md, this ingest skill does not create product pages; the gap is logged for the taxonomy review pass.
• Folder placement. PDF is filed under raw/manual-fetch/Kimi_Agent_Download Corruption Issue/condiments2_papers/03_Condiments/. The folder is the upstream sorter’s category and is preserved (immutable per Part 4).
• Audit (2026-06-02, general-purpose fresh-context subagent). Verdict REVISE; Checks 2, 3, 4 clean, Check 1 and Check 5 each had one ⚠️ finding applied. (1) Lede IEUBK range cross-attribution: original text said “0.5–1.8 µg/dL increase” attached to the 0.308 µg/g highest-Pb product, but Table 5 shows 0.5–0.9 µg/dL for the 0.308 µg/g product and 1.0–1.8 µg/dL for the 0.230 µg/g product (the high end belongs to a different product). Verified against source p. 535 Table 5; corrected lede to “0.2–1.8 µg/dL across the four >0.1 ppm products” with explicit attribution of the high end to the 0.230 µg/g product and the 5.4 g vs 15 g serving-size split that drives the per-product daily-dose differences. (2) Implications-section editorial gloss: original text said “modeled increments here are not negligible against the current reference value.” Verified against source p. 535 — the 2013 paper uses the 10 µg/dL CDC action level only and does not model against 5 or 3.5 µg/dL. Trimmed to a temporal-update note and explicitly flagged comparisons to the current reference value as downstream-synthesis work, not a claim of this source. The subagent’s Check 4 verdict initially read ❌ but the subagent self-corrected to ✅ on re-read; no Part 12 brand-firewall changes applied.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• lead
• spices
• salt
• condiments-general
• food-packaging-caps-closures
• food-packaging-plastic-tubs
• Future hot-sauce (does not yet exist; condiments-general is the current routing destination)
• Future chili-pepper (does not yet exist; spices is the current routing destination)

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.