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Some veggie puffs contain high levels of lead, Consumer Reports finds
Some veggie puffs made by Lesser Evil and Serenity Kids contain concerning levels of lead, a heavy metal linked to developmental and other disabilities in children, according to findings released Wednesday by Consumer Reports.
Parents may see veggie puffs, marketed as a healthy alternative to sugar-laden snacks, as a way to make foods like beets, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes palatable for kids. But certain cassava-based brands have excessive amounts of lead or other heavy metals, making even a single serving unhealthy in the case of one product, the advocacy group cautioned.
Troublesome levels of lead were found in both Lesser Evil puff products tested and one from Serenity Kids, Consumer Reports found. Lesser Evil’s Lil’ Puffs Intergalactic Voyager Veggie Blend puffs had more lead per serving than any of the 80 baby foods the watchdog has tested since 2017, the group noted.
“We think kids should consume less than half a serving a day of those,” James E. Rogers, head of food safety testing at Consumer Reports, said in a statement.
As for the other two puff products that showed high lead levels — Lesser Evil’s Lil’ Puffs Sweet Potato Apple Asteroid and Serenity Kids’ Tomato & Herb Bone Broth puffs — Consumer Reports advises limiting consumption to 1.5 servings a day.
Puffs and other snacks made with rice can be high in arsenic, prior tests by Consumer Reports found. That prompted some manufacturers to use other starches, such as the root cassava or sorghum, a gluten-free grain.
Consumer Reports found very low levels of lead in two sorghum-based products from Once Upon a Farm, a company co-founded by actress Jennifer Garner. The company’s snacks also yielded some of the lowest lead levels of all the baby foods tested by Consumer Reports, it noted.
“Clearly, some manufacturers need to do a better job of keeping heavy metals out of their snack foods, and there may be some particular concerns about foods made with cassava,” Rogers said.
Scott Meadows/Consumer Report
Parents who have given their children cassava puffs should not panic, but instead be cognizant that the amounts found by Consumer Reports could over time raise the risk of developmental problems, such as lower IQ, ADHD and autism.
“You have to account for the fact that small amounts of lead can add up and that children may be exposed to some lead in drinking water or their environment,” Rogers said. “That’s why foods with more lead should be minimized in a child’s diet.”
Lesser Evil said that all of its products adhere to regulatory requirements. “Lesser Evil was built on a mission to create better, cleaner, more natural products than the highly processed and refined snacks that overtook grocery store shelves for years,” the company told CBS MoneyWatch in a statement.
The company’s products “all meet GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) standards and federal regulations for organic products,” Lesser Evil stated, adding that “we conduct extensive testing for all Lesser Evil products that complies with California Prop 65 and federal standards.”
Sami Rosnov, chief of operations at Corner Market Communications, which represents Lesser Evil, told Consumer Reports that lead occurs in nature “due to years of pollution and contamination in our water and soil.”
Serenity Kids also defended the company’s products, including its testing and quality assurance practices.
“Our puffs are and have always been safe for consumption. All of our products test well below the Maximum Allowable Dose Levels (MADLs) established by California Proposition 65,” the company said in a statement.
“We have always addressed lead and all heavy metals head on because we are confident in the safety of our products and ingredients, and because we believe that our products are healthier than the alternatives that exist today,” the company added.
In a statement, Once Upon a Farm also noted that heavy metals occur naturally in the environment, making them “virtually impossible” to avoid. “Our standard is to minimize their presence to consumable levels in all our products,” the company told CBS MoneyWatch.
Once Upon a Farm said it also seeks to reduce heavy metals in its products by using organic ingredients from global regions that have taken steps to lower risks and by testing the materials most likely to contain metals. Emily Luna, baby brand manager at Once Upon a Farm, also said the company chose sorghum for its puffs in part because it’s less likely to contain heavy metals than rice or cassava.
The findings follow the release of separate results in April in which Consumer Reports found that Lunchables, another popular food product for kids, contains troublesome levels of lead and sodium.
“The classification of foods should be based on scientific evidence that includes an assessment of the nutritional value of the whole product, not restricted to one element such as a single ingredient or the level of processing,” a spokesperson for Kraft Heinz said in defending the 35-year-old brand.
A government report in 2021 found that baby food made by several of the nation’s biggest manufacturers had “significant levels” of substances including lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, prompting the FDA to propose limits on arsenic, lead and mercury in baby food.
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Oklahoma attorney general says state schools superintendent cannot mandate students watch prayer video
The Oklahoma attorney general’s office responded after the state’s education superintendent sent an email this week to public school administrators requiring them to show students his video announcement of a new Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism. In the video, he prays for President-elect Trump.
Ryan Walters, a Republican, announced the new office on Wednesday and on Thursday sent the email to school superintendents statewide. The new department will be within the state’s Department of Education. Walters said it would “oversee the investigation of abuses to individual religious freedom or displays of patriotism.”
“In one of the first steps of the newly created department, we are requiring all of Oklahoma schools to play the attached video to all kids that are enrolled,” according to the email. Districts were also told to send the video to all parents of students.
In the video, Walters says religious liberty has been attacked and patriotism mocked “by woke teachers unions,” then prays for the leaders of the United States after saying students do not have to join in the prayer.
Sue Ogrocki / AP
“In particular, I pray for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country,” Walters said.
The office of state Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a statement Friday saying Walters has no authority under state law to issue such a mandate.
“Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents’ rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights,” said the attorney general’s office spokesperson Phil Bacharach.
Multiple school districts have also said they had no plans to show students the video.
Walters, a former public school teacher elected in 2022, ran on a platform of fighting “woke ideology,” banning books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he claims are indoctrinating children in classrooms. He already faces two lawsuits over his June mandate that schools incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for students in grades 5 through 12. Several school districts have previously stated that they will disregard the mandate.
One of the lawsuits also notes that the initial request for proposal released by the State Department of Education to purchase the Bibles appears to have been tailored to match Bibles endorsed by now President-elect Donald Trump that sell for $59.99 each.
Earlier this week, Walters announced he had purchased more than 500 Bibles to be used in Advanced Placement government classes. The education department that the 500 Bibles are “God Bless the USA Bibles” and were ordered Thursday for about $25,000. They will arrive “in the coming weeks,” the department said.
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Kamala Harris raised more than $1 billion for her campaign. She’s still sending persistent appeals to donors after defeat.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party’s prodigious fundraising operation raised more than $1 billion in her loss to Donald Trump, but the vice president is still pushing donors for more money after the election.
Democrats are sending persistent appeals to Harris supporters without expressly asking them to cover any potential debts, enticing would-be donors instead with other matters: the Republican president-elect’s picks for his upcoming administration and a handful of pending congressional contests where ballots are still being tallied.
“The Harris campaign certainly spent more than they raised and is now busy trying to fundraise,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist from Michigan. He said he had been asked by the campaign after its loss to Trump to help with fundraising.
The party is flooding Harris’ lucrative email donor list with near-daily appeals aimed at small-dollar donors — those whose contributions are measured in the hundreds of dollars or less. But Hemond said the postelection effort also includes individual calls to larger donors.
One person familiar with the effort and the Democratic National Committee’s finances said the Harris campaign’s expected shortfall is a relatively small sum compared to the breadth of the campaign, which reported having $119 million cash on hand in mid-October before the Nov. 5 election. That person was not authorized to publicly discuss the campaign’s finances and spoke on condition of anonymity.
But the scramble now underscores the expense involved in a losing effort and the immediate challenges facing Democrats as they try to maintain a baseline political operation to counter the Trump administration and prepare for the 2026 midterm elections. It also calls into question how Democrats used their resources, including hosting events with musicians and other celebrities as well as running ads in a variety of nontraditional spaces such as Las Vegas’ domed Sphere.
Patrick Stauffer, chief financial officer for the Harris campaign, said in a statement that “there were no outstanding debts or bills overdue” on Election Day and there “will be no debt” listed for either the campaign or the DNC on their next financial disclosures, which are due to the Federal Election Commission in December.
The person familiar with the campaign and DNC’s finances said it was impossible to know just where Harris’ balance sheet stands currently. The campaign still is getting invoices from vendors for events and other services from near the end of the race. The campaign also has outstanding receipts; for example, from media organizations that must pay for their employees’ spots on Air Force Two as it traveled for the vice president’s campaign activities.
Within hours of Trump picking Florida Republican Matt Gaetz for attorney general on Wednesday, Harris’ supporters got an appeal for more money for “the Harris Fight Fund,” citing the emerging Trump team and its agenda.
Gaetz, who resigned his House seat after the announcement, “will weaponize the Justice Department to protect themselves,” the email said. It said Democrats “must stop them from executing Trump’s plans for revenge and retribution” and noted that “even his Republican allies are shocked by this” Cabinet choice.
Another appeal followed Friday in Harris’ name.
“The light of America’s promise will burn bright as long as we keep fighting,” the email said, adding that “there are still a number of critical races across the country that are either too close to call or with the margin of recounts or certain legal challenges.”
The emails do not mention Harris’ campaign or its finances.
The “Harris Fight Fund” is a postelection label for the “Harris Victory Fund,” which is the joint fundraising operation of Harris’ campaign, the DNC and state Democratic parties. Despite the language in the recent appeals, most rank-and-file donors’ contributions would be routed to the national party, unless a donor took the time to contact DNC directly and have the money go directly to Harris or a state party.
The fine print at the bottom of the solicitation explains that the first $41,300 from a person and first $15,000 from a political action committee would be allocated to the DNC. The next $3,300 from a person or $5,000 from a PAC would go to the Harris for President “Recount Account.” Anything beyond that threshold, up to maximum contribution limits that can reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, would be spread across state parties.
Officials at the DNC, which is set to undergo a leadership change early next year, indicated the party has no plans to cover any shortfall for Harris but could not explicitly rule out the party shifting any money to the campaign.
