High Lead Levels Found in 12 Brands of Cinnamon, Report Finds

If you frequently top off your coffee or oatmeal with cinnamon, it's time to check your spice cabinet again. Following the cinnamon recall earlier this month, high levels of lead were found in 12 brands of cinnamon powder as well as multi-spice powders.

Consumer Reports, the nonprofit that helps consumers evaluate goods and services, recently released findings from a testing they conducted on cinnamon powder. Out of the 36 ground cinnamon products and spice blends that contain cinnamon, 12 of them measured above 1 part per million (PPM) of lead, the report states. One-quarter of a teaspoon of any of these products has more lead than one should consume in a day, according to James Rogers, PhD, the director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports.

The tested products included popular brands available in mainstream grocery stores and smaller brands available in specialty stores. Interested in knowing if your go-to brand of cinnamon contains lead? Here's a list of the 12 brands with the highest lead levels.

• Paras Cinnamon Powder: 3.52 PPM of lead
• EGN Cinnamon Powder: 2.91 PPM of lead
• Mimi's Products Ground Cinnamon: 2.03 PPM of lead
• Bowl & Basket Ground Cinnamon: 1.82 PPM of lead
• Rani Brand Ground Cinnamon: 1.39 PPM of lead
• Zara Foods Cinnamon Powder: 1.27 PPM of lead
• Three Rivers Cinnamon Stick Powder: 1.26 PPM of lead
• Yu Yee Brand Five Spice Powder: 1.25 PPM of lead
• BaiLiFeng Five Spice Powder: 11.15 PPM of lead
• Spicy King Five Spices Powder: 1.05 PPM of lead
• Badia Cinnamon Powder: 1.03 PPM of lead
• Deep Cinnamon Powder: 1.02 PPM of lead

“If you have one of those products, we think you should throw it away,” says Rogers. “Even small amounts of lead pose a risk because, over time, it can accumulate in the body and remain there for years, seriously harming health,” he says. 

Out of all the cinnamon products Consumer Reports tested, six options posed the lowest risk or contained no lead at all: 365 Whole Foods Market Ground Cinnamon, 365 Whole Foods Market Organic Ground Cinnamon, Loisa Organic Cinnamon, Morton & Bassett San Francisco Organic Cinnamon, Sadaf Cinnamon Powder, and Sadaf Seven Spice blend.

If you're interested in steering away from using cinnamon, there are some substitutes you can opt for, such as nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, mace, and cloves. If you decide to try out a spice powder, sometimes these can contain cinnamon, so you'll want to double-check that they aren't one of the products with high lead levels.