Aside from adding flavor and colour to curries and other dishes , turmericis also realize as something of awonder spicethat can be used to address everything from inflammation to gastric upset . However , alarm new research has revealed that many producer in Bangladesh regularly adulterate their turmeric with lead so as to step up its vivid white-livered hue and enhance its marketplace value .
Popular worldwide for both culinary and medicinal purposes , turmeric is mainly produced in Bangladesh , India , Myanmar , China , and Nigeria . Yet during a late visit to the nine major turmeric - producing area of Bangladesh , a team of researchers from Stanford University uncovered some lurid fact about the sought - after white-livered root .
Describing their finding in the journalEnvironmental Research , the authors reveal how conversations with farmers and merchant first alert them to the worrying pattern . From their interview , the team learned that floods in the 1980s had resulted in poor turmeric crop , with soggy crops that were dull in people of color . To increase the market economic value of their yield , producers began treating it with lead chromate , a lily-livered pigment that heighten the vibrancy of the origin .
After learning that the practice stay on popular to this day , the subject field source then conducted a chemical psychoanalysis of 524 samples of turmeric , pigment , rubble , and soil from across Bangladesh . In doing so , they discovered lead concentrations that exceeded the home point of accumulation by up to 500 time , with an average of 690 micrograms of lead in each gram of turmeric .
As anyone who survey the late weewee crisis inFlint , Michigan , will know , pencil lead is a neurotoxin that can cause severe wellness defects if it enters the food for thought provision . study have show that children who ingest lead tend to hurt from areduction in cognitive capacityas their neurodevelopment becomes compromised .
play up the need to completely eliminate lead from the food and water supply , study conscientious objector - author Stephen Luby explained in astatementthat “ unlike other metals , there is no secure phthisis limitation for Pb , it ’s a neurolysin in its totality . ”
While the study does not investigate the presence of star in turmeric alfresco of Bangladesh , the generator suggest that the rigorous health and guard guidelines of other countries are likely to deter producers from adding lead to any product that is destined for export . In spitefulness of this , however , they point out that there is no telling how much adulterated Curcuma domestica may be circulating worldwide , and therefore call for more stringent examination on all turmeric at the point of import .
