You buy organic food because you want to avoid toxic synthetic pesticides like glyphosate in your family’s meal, right? But what if some brands were including ingredients that were contaminated with pesticides that are prohibited in organic? Would you want to know who these brands are? We wanted to know what’s going on with organic vegan pea proteins.
With the help of The Detox Project, Mamavation is unleashing a shocking report on the top-selling protein powders on Amazon. The results were unexpected and very concerning to the organic industry. This shows us the potential dangers of a lack of testing in the global organic supply chain.
In order to combat fraud, Mamavation is recommending that organic brands test their ingredients before putting them into their product to ensure this doesn’t happen again. You’ve trusted Mamavation to cover investigations like safer cookware, safer sunscreen, and best organic mattresses, now join us as we share with you what we discovered about protein powders. And stick around for our recommended vegan protein powder brand.
Disclosure: This investigation is part of the new “What’s Really in Our Food & Supplements?” campaign and was done in partnership with The Detox Project. Mamavation has been consulting for The Detox Project since 2016.
Table of Contents
Popularity of Plant-Based Alternatives Has Fueled An Increase in Pea Protein. Problem is Insufficient Testing.
The Detox Project tested the top eight selling popular protein powders on Amazon. Most of these brands were vegan and contained pea protein, but they also tested brands with soy, whey, & collagen proteins as well. When we got the test results back, we were shocked.
The exact oppositive of what we thought would happen, happened.
Some of the organic pea protein brands’ products came back with higher levels of glyphosate than the conventional brands. This is very problematic because glyphosate is prohibited in the certified organic standards, meaning farmers are not allowed to spray glyphosate on their fields and manufacturers are not allowed to “swap” conventional crops for organic crops.
My first thought was, did we just find a massive problem in the global organic supply chain? The seriousness of the situation prompted The Detox Project to repeat the labs of two of the organic brands that contained pea protein with new batches. When we got those test results back they were WORSE than the first test results.
And that was the point by which we realized we had a very serious problem.
I get it. You’re shocked and mad. I am too. This part may be confusing or infuriating but it underlines a major issue with the organic industry in America–they don’t require enough lab testing.
People assume organic companies are testing their supply chain for problems, but it seems as if that is not happening. In an increasingly complex world, organic companies are relying on the global supply chain without the neutrality of lab testing to ensure quality. And as the organic industry grows, this is proving to be very unwise.
Now this isn’t true of ALL organic brands or all supply chains. Some brands are going above and beyond and utilizing a third party to acquire “clean” ingredients that are tested. But these ‘clean’ supplies are often more expensive and if a brand is trying to drive their costs down, they may opt for a cheaper supply chain without testing. In this sense, you get what you pay for.
Uncovering Massive Problems in the Organic Industry is Like Having a Meeting About Your Child With the Principal. It’s Not Pleasant, But You Love Them Enough to Help Them Grow. How Do We Go Forward? Testing.
Testing and finding contamination in organic products for me is like having a meeting with my son’s principal. It’s not a pleasant experience, and I’d rather not do it, but it’s important to help my child grow. So what do you do when you find massive problems in the global organic supply chain?
I’ve decided to expose the problem because I believe that the consumer has a right to know. Ultimately they are paying top dollar for food free from toxic synthetic pesticides like glyphosate. They deserve the truth so they can make an educated decision at the grocery store.
My hope is that, at the very least, ALL BRANDS containing organic pea protein powder test their products to see if their supply is contaminated with glyphosate and if it is, find a supplier that can provide truly clean ingredients.
The Organic Trade Association has started a program for brands to combat contamination in the industry, however, they have not yet recommend lab testing ingredients, which we believe has to start happening immediately if we all want to get to the bottom of this.
To be more precise, we suggest ALL BRANDS test their products down to the accepted level in Europe and Japan of 10 ppb (parts per billion)–below this level could just be traces or mistaken lab results. Europe has a zero tolerance to all pesticides in their organic supply chain down to 10 ppb–the United States should too!
Why Is Pea Protein Such a Problem in the Organic Industry? Desiccation & “Swapping” Increases The Amount of Glyphosate In Food.
Desiccation is a farming practice where the farmer sprays glyphosate on his fields just before harvest to dry out the crop sooner so it can be harvested sooner. Because of the spraying of glyphosate being so close to the time that it’s harvested, the levels of glyphosate will be higher in the food we eat. The Detox Project has consistently found contamination in products containing oats, wheat, some spices & legumes as it’s been testing the food supply in the U.S. and Europe for the last 2 years.
Another issue is “swapping out.” This is where a manufacturer will “swap” an organic ingredient for a conventional ingredient at the factory or try to pass off conventional for organic in some way. This is another way for the level of glyphosate or other pesticides to be high in the final ‘organic’ product.
But these issues have been known for a couple of years already. The American organic grain trade was infiltrated by eastern European cartels in 2017, who took advantage of the USDA’s lax organic enforcement policies. According to a report produced by watchdog organization Cornucopia, the USDA fell victim to the European Union clamping down on organic inspections. This shifted the weight of fraudulent organic shipments from former Soviet Bloc countries including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, and Russia to the United States and they passed inspections. Organic corn, soybeans, and other commodities were part of the shipments. Most of these crops likely went to feeding organic animals, however, they also contaminated some of our dinner plates in processed foods. Could this be part of the reason why some organic brands are testing positive for glyphosate? Possibly. Millions of pounds of shipments of contaminated organic food is something the USDA needs to do something about.
Some Brands Are Already Starting To Test for Pesticides & Get Certified Or Publish Their Lab Results. This Positive Trend Protects Consumers.
Some brands are already starting to test their products and establish more trust by getting certified or publicly sharing them. The Detox Project is an organization Mamavation has partnered with since 2016 to test and certify that brands have no glyphosate residue inside their product. They have created the “Glyphosate Residue Free” certification which was recently covered in Forbes, that can be attained by both conventional or organic brands proving they are clean.
Brands like MegaFood – supplements, FoodStirs – brownie mix & Chosen Foods – avocado oil have gotten “Glyphosate Residue Free” certification from the Detox Project. When brands work with the Detox Project, they have to allow them to pull a product off the shelf three times a year for testing to maintain their certification.
Another brand called Zego Foods specializing in allergy-friendly oatmeal & vegan protein powder has started publicly sharing their laboratory test results to prove they are clean. These types of brands are going above and beyond to safeguard their customers from the potential contamination of a global supply chain.
The Detox Project also helps brands behind the scenes to find ‘cleaner’ supplies, which is slowly helping to make may products ‘pesticide-free.’
Click here to support and Fund Food Testing! –Gofundme Page
The Results from The Detox Project Testing of Protein Powders
The Detox Project tested eight of the top-selling protein powders on Amazon as of March. The testing was done at a California Department of Food and Agriculture approved laboratory. The results were shocking and point to a real need for laboratory testing of pesticide residue in order to maintain the standards of organic and combat contamination within the industry. You can find the full results of the lab reports here.
Brands at a Red Level–High Concern
These brands had between 80 parts per billion (ppb) or more of glyphosate residue:
- Orgain Organic Protein Plant-Based Protein Powder, unflavored: USDA Organic (tested twice and both times in high concern)
- Anthony’s Premium Pea Protein made from yellow pea protein isolate from Germany, unflavored
Brands at a Yellow Level–Slight Concern
These brands had between 10 & 79 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate residue:
- Purely Inspired Organic Vegan Protein Powder, vanilla flavored: USDA Organic (unflavored, tested twice and both times in slight concern)
- Sunwarrior Warrior Blend Vegan Protein Powder with Peas & Hemp, vanilla flavored: USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified
- Naked Pea 1 Lb Pea Protein Isolate from North American Farms
Brands at a Green Level–No Concern
These brands had under 10 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate residue. They were all soy, dairy & collagen based.
- Sports Research Collagen Peptides Powder (unflavored)
- Bulksupplements Soy Protein Isolate Powder
- Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder (Chocolate)
Click here to support and Fund Food Testing! –Gofundme Page
Mamavation & The Detox Project Launches GoFundMe Campaign to Crowdfund Money for More Testing
After we finished this investigation, we decided it would be advantageous to do more testing of different categories of food to ensure consumers were getting what they paid for. With our first stab at testing, we found contamination in the global organic supply chain and came up with strategies for both consumers and brands to follow to ensure this doesn’t happen again. But we want to take this further and test more types of foods to alert the consumer as to which brands are selling a clean product. But in order to do this, we need your help.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO GOFUNDME FUNDRAISER
Click here to donate some of your spare change to help us accomplish this! We want to start testing additional categories like the following:
- Pastas, rice & bread (gluten & non-gluten varieties)
- Cereals
- Snack foods like chips, crackers, etc.
- Meat alternatives
- Dairy products
- Baby food
- Meat & chicken (for pesticides & antibiotics)
- Condiments & spices
- Nut butters & spreads
With your help, we believe we can assist in cleaning up the global organic supply chain until the organic industry finally agrees and requires testing to ensure contamination isn’t happening.
Click here to support and Fund Food Testing! –Gofundme Page
Vegan Brands Mamavation Recommends Instead of Organic Pea Protein–Incha Sasha, Pumpkin & Hemp
As you can see, organic pea protein has a problem. So we recommend you don’t purchase it until we can repeat this study to know that it’s been cleaned up.
Until then, we’ve been recommending brands that use organic pumpkin, hemp and incha sasha instead because they are mild and don’t have any contamination issues that we’ve found so far. (We will let you know if we run into that!)
Our two favorite brands that are known by reputation for testing everything and revealing those results online are below.
- Perfect Supplements Vegan Protein Powder, containing pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds & sacha inchi ground up really fine for smoothies, cooking & baking.
- Zego Plant Protein made with 100% incha Sasha seeds.
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I would love to know if Earth Chimp is a zero-chemical brand. Has anyone had this brand tested? They are organic and taste great. They are the only protein powder I have found with just organic monk fruit only as a sweetener. A lot of the others use Stevia and Erythritol. Thank you @mamavation for all of the work you do helping others to find “the right path.”
I would love to know if Kachava is a safe brand. I’ve been consuming their chocolate protein shake for about a year and love it, but now I’m skeptical it’s as healthy as it claims. Would you be willing to have it tested? I’d be happy to donate to help support additional testing. Thank you for what you’re doing. I’m glad to have found your site!
Did you ever find out if kachava was safe? I too would like to know and can contribute…
What about KOS and Kachava ?
Any update on KOS or Kachava
Kachava has the WRONG form of B12. It’s Cyan instead of Methyl.
Hi
I just need to know if at this time, Orgain protein powders are safe to consume? After ready Dr Mercolas article yesterday I was about to return my orgain products, then I saw your update,,, so I just want to make sure they are safe now?
Thanks,
Sheri
It seems realy strange that German protein and Orgain Organic Protein are high on the list but your alternatives are very expensive. Before NOW introduced their organic pea protein, I enquired about their use of glyphosate. The response was that because they were preparing to go organic, they did not use it. I don’t know if it is to be a partial or total switch to organic so I don’t know if some fields might be using glyphosate in the harvest while others don’t. This is a reasonably priced product so testing after further enquiry would be quite useful. Any chance of that happening?
QUESTION:
Is there a safe STEEL CUT OATS brand? Currently eating McCann’s. Or are known safe brands all rolled oats?
S
Check out one degree. they test for glyphosate are sprouted and organic.
Tamara Rubin aka Lead Safe Mama just published 3rd party testing for One Degree organic sprouted rolled oats. Is presently one of only 3 (from a wide variety of products) to test non-detect for heavy metals. Unfortunately, the lab is not testing for other contaminants. fyi-I am acutely chemically sensitive and I muscle test well for One Degree’s organic sprouted steel-cut oats.
I follow The Food Babe, AKA, Vani Hari. She is out to expose the food industry of all the chemical additives, pesticides, herbicides, etc. in our food. She also has a clean and organic supplement line of products. Check her out. I think these folks who are out to make a better and cleaner life for us should join forces.
Everyone is talking if this or that brand has glyphosate, no one cares that psychopaths are still continuously poisoning our food, water and land. They should be hanged or imprisoned for life. Concentrate on the root cause, not on the symptoms.
The inventors of Roundup and those who approved its use must pay billions of dollars for the rest of their lives for killing, injuring and damaging people’s lives.
What is wrong with you people? Today you think you buy something clean, tomorrow that something will be filled with poison, it’s a never-ending loop, not until the criminals are fined and thrown to prison for life. Wake the hell up and be active, don’t hide and try to find something that is “still clean”.
I totally agree with you! Speak with your dollars. Only buy from companies you know are not doing or allowing this.
Hi! Anyone know if Trader Joe’s organic pea protein is safe?
I have this question too!
I hope I’m not the only one that noticed only 2 of 5 of the “pea protein” products tested are the only pure pea protein products. The rest are multi-ingredient formulations, so this alone invalidates over half your data.
Another study was done on Orgain and the pesticides passed the test. It however tested really poorly for Arsenic/Mercury and Cadmium/Lead
http://staging-cleanlabelproject.kinsta.com/products/orgain-organic-meal-vanilla-bean-all-in-one-nutrition-powder/
Hey Channel! We are friends with the Clean Label Project and they don’t host any of those results anymore. What I can tell you is last they checked it was high for heavy metals and medium for pesticides. I don’t think they tested for glyphosate however…that’s a completely different test.
I contacted Orgain today. Their statement is that they have a zero-tolerance policy on glyphosate, and have since tested their product at the same facility mamavation used, finding zero levels of glyphosate. I’m not a regular follower of mamavation, so excuse me if I’m just not seeing it, but have you posted any follow up on that? All I see is that you’re a brand ambassador for orgain now, but haven’t specifically addressed this blog post–maybe an update on this page would be a good idea? Because like a lot of people, I’m sure, I was very close to never buying Orgain again, and that wouldn’t have been the right choice.
I contacted them too. they stated they test for this since last year. But test was done in March of this year…so I am not sure what to believe any more.
You could cross reference the results on LabDoor. They don’t mention glyphosphate but they do mention other heavy metals.
Hey Zach!
We worked with Orgain many years ago. They were a small sponsor at a conference I used to operate. I think they were there for two years. We haven’t worked with them since then. That’s why I was able to say they were a client before. We’ve worked with close to 150 organic and natural brands in operation of this conference over the years. So we know lots of brands in this space.
To update you, we haven’t retested yet, but we plan to. We know there has been movement in the industry since investigation hit. Lots of movement. And it’s movement in the right direction so that’s good.
I can’t control what spin they give you. But with all that pressure, you can be sure they are testing now cause they don’t want to get caught again.
But again, we haven’t independently tested since this came out.
You can’t give us any hints as to whether we can trust such a company or not? Why would that brand’s products in particular be SO high in glyphosate? Any ideas? They advertise their products as being very clean… Would you extrapolate from those results and say that all their vegan products with similar ingredients are suspect?
Here’s an Amazon review for one of their products: “No Glyphosate, product tested independently to insure purity. By MCJM on February 17, 2020 It is hard if not impossible to find an organic, vegan, sugar free, gluten free bar so these are a regular part of my diet….One reviewer mentioned the pea protein in these tested very high for glyphosate. I was immediately concerned and contacted the company.: “Glyphosate is unfortunately one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture and one of the most pervasive chemicals in our food system. Reducing the use of glyphosate is one of the motivations to grow crops organically and produce or purchase Organic products. Because of our concern that glyphosate can migrate to organic fields, and to ensure that we are holding our organic pea suppliers to the highest standards, Orgain instituted a protocol in late 2018 that requires every lot of organic pea protein to be tested by an accredited global third party lab for glyphosate, glufosinate, and aminomethlyphosphonic acid (AMPA). Since instituting the testing, not a single batch of organic pea protein has tested positive for any of these chemicals. Out of an abundance of caution, we also conducted third-party testing on finished goods on Orgain’s best-selling protein powders (including the product mentioned in the article), all of which returned zero detectable results. Please see attachment. We will continue raw material testing on every lot of organic pea protein as part of our regular quality protocol and will refuse to use any ingredient that tests out of spec.”
Does anyone know how their other products test for heavy metals as well? You would think an organic, Health-oriented company would test their products and want to share those results?
And what year were your tests done?
I was literally going to buy some Orgain, then I saw this article and didn’t. I would like to know the current status. Is it safe or no?
https://support.orgain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047489771-Are-your-ingredients-tested-for-heavy-metals-
That link is a bunch of lawyer talk. Of course they meet government regulations because they wouldnt be able to sell if they didnt. They mention nothing of Glyphosate testing. They either need to put up or shut up.
I ate orgain powder from Costco and then felt blank minded.
I tried to call them the next day but there is no phone online for them. I think there was a couple years ago as I think I remember calling them. In the past I got a nice cs rep.
When I emailed this time (about 1.5 months ago) I got some lame ass crappy generic response. I had asked about heavy metal testing and
*wanting to see the testing data, and that every other company except one, ever, has given to me.*
In the crap response it even said “we are happy to put you at ease” etc.
Idiots. No you didn’t, so I emailed back and got no response. I’m emailing again and saying I will return everything and go out of my way to tell anyone in that aisle in Costco near their products to stay away and that they don’t care. Crap response, and not having a phone number = don’t care.
If we trusted every company at what they said verbally, then every protein powder on the market would be perfect. I am exhausted of all of the companies who throw around the words “lab tested” without providing any of the data that was tested and/or batch results. Naked (makers of naked pea and whey protein) claims to be lab tested. However, their FAQ literally says their lab doesnt give them permission to share the results?! Seriously? They have the right to chose another lab but my guess is that they either have something to hide or dont care as much as about lab testing as they claim.