These lovely ladies seem to be doing just fine
Today I drove to my favorite store, BJ's Club, in suburban Rochester, NY with one goal in mind: stocking up on my weekly supply of chocolate flavored Muscle Milk. Seems harmless enough. But immediately after handing the checkout kid my BJ's card, he immediately tells me: "You know this stuff has arsenic and cadmium in it, right?" Um, no. I didn't. He goes on to explain that there was a consumer report in June, 2010 which suggests that the stuff is toxic. Clearly he doesn't want me to buy it (even though he works behind the counter at a store that sells the stuff). At first, I thought he was joking but he assured me that he was entirely serious. So, I decided to do my research when I got home.
I found a Consumer Reports article dating from June, 2010, which is a follow-up of an earlier article that detailed the finding that a sample from three nutritional supplements (including CytoSport's Muscle Milk) was detected to have levels of "arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury" that were above the safe levels according the guidelines in the U.S. Pharmacopeia (if three servings a day were consumed). CytoSport responded to this finding in a statement in which they highlighted the erratic nature of the random sample: some sampled powders will have more heavy metals than others. Furthermore, CytoSport reported that its products are tested by a non-profit organization called NSF, which has its own guidelines of toxicity for products. According to Consumer Reports, NSF's acceptable levels of heavy metals are more stringent than the U.S. Pharmacopeia when it comes to arsenic, but less stringent for lead, cadmium, and mercury.
So what does this mean exactly? Basically, there is no question that there are trace amounts of heavy metals in Muscle Milk products, but it is debatable whether or not the levels are high enough to cause concern. Also, it is not clear if "toxic" levels are actually dangerous for civilians. Consumer Reports mentioned that lead poisoning is of primary concern to children and also cited an article showing that high levels of cadmium were found to cause kidney failure in a population of Swedish women. Well, fortunately I am not a Swedish woman and I have no intention of giving up my Muscle Milk as it is one of the few shakes that I actually don't have to force myself to drink, because it tastes pretty good. Suck on that, BJ's Club checkout boy!
