Heavy metal snacks - A Bioversity project report

In many rapidly growing cities people spend a lot of money on snacks. ‘Experts’ may whine and wonder why people aren’t more ‘sensible’ about their food choices, but the high price and demand for snacks have created opportunities that local producers have been quick to exploit.

Small, often family-run, operations have sprung up around the region, making a range of ‘pop-cereal’ snacks, often from locally available grains. In Kenya, Bioversity has worked with partners to develop new snacks based on local grains (see ‘Why pop just corn  [1]?  [1]'). Now, in the Andean region, Bioversity is working with partners to develop the markets for snacks based on local crops such as quinoa and maize.

The good thing about these snacks is that they can create markets for locally produced crops, with all the benefits that local sourcing offers. They may also have better nutritional properties than the high-fat, energy-rich snacks they replace. The downside is that often they are being produced in garages, sheds and backrooms using uncertified production methods, and are not subject to the same levels of quality control found in the mass-produced commercial product.

Get the lead out

The kinds of problem that can occur came to light recently when some of these small producers wanted to sell their products on the national market in Peru and even to export them. This required them to submit their products for quality testing, which revealed some alarming results.

Pop-cereals from Puno department of Peru contained an average of 18 times as much lead as the maximum permitted by the Codex Alimentarius standards published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. The levels permitted in foods targeted at the most vulnerable group—women who are breastfeeding and children—are one-tenth the ‘general’ level. These products contained 180 times more lead than permitted!

Lead is something that you really do not want in your food, especially if you are a growing child, as it disrupts the development of the nervous system.

The unprocessed seeds contained normal levels of lead, so further investigations were needed to identify the source of the ‘extra’ lead. These quickly identified the machinery used to pop the cereals as a prime suspect. These machines were largely hand-made, and constructed from substandard materials, particularly cast iron, which contains high levels of lead. Many of the machines even used lead itself to seal the door of the popping chamber.

Bioversity joined universities and NGOs to work with some of the small-scale snack producers to develop an improved popper made from safer materials. Initial tests have shown some lead contamination, possibly from the workshop environment or from the paint applied to the popper. Further tests are being run to determine lead levels in the finished products to ensure that they meet the more stringent levels recommended for children and breastfeeding women before the prototype is signed off as ready for wider use.

The project is also promoting greater public awareness of the problem of lead contamination among food processors and sellers, to encourage adoption of improved processing technology and better food-handling practices.

Snacks will always be a part of people’s diets: this project aims to make sure that locally-produced snacks are not only healthier but also contribute to dietary diversity in a good way.

Further information:

•  'Heavy Metal Snacks' PDF  [2] (149 KB) taken from Bioversity's 2009 Annual Report

•  New Life for Ancient Grains: Improving Livelihoods, Income and Health of Andean Communities  [3] (64 KB)

Contact:  m.jager@cgiar.org  [4]

Bioversity would like to extend our thanks to IFAD  [5] for supporting this project and to our partners, CIRNMA and PROINPA  [6].