Matcha Green Tea Bundle

Proposition 65 Warning for California Consumers

WARNING: Consuming this product can expose you to chemicals including Lead, Cadmium, and/or Acrylamide which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/products/food

Does this law apply everywhere?

The “Prop 65” warnings are only required under California law. Prop 65 standards are among the most stringent standards in place anywhere and are often far more stringent than federal standards

Why do we have this warning?

Over 800 chemicals have been listed under California Prop 65. Certain listed chemicals, such as lead, are widely distributed through the environment in air, soil, water, and rocks. As a result, these types of chemicals are often found in commonly eaten foods and throughout the food supply even though these chemicals are not intentionally added to foods or nutritional supplements

Many fruits, vegetables, coffee, chocolate, and even drinking water naturally contain some levels of the substances administeredby Prop 65. In many cases, the exposure limits required by Prop 65 are lower than what occurs naturally. Turnips, apples, artichokes, carrots, cucumbers, green beans, and spinach are just a few foods that can deliver chemical exposures in excess of Prop 65 limits

How do these chemicals get in our food?

Lead, for example, is found in natural proteins, plants, and minerals. Not a lot, but a measurable amount because plants absorb metals and other trace chemicals from the soil in which they’re grown. Detectable levels don’t mean that the plant was grown in dirty, polluted soil. The amount of lead naturally found in many fruits and vegetables grown in clean, uncontaminated soil may, and in many cases does, exceed Prop 65 limits. When the State of Californiaconducted a soil-lead-uptake analysis of its own soil, from 70 different locations, they found that most vegetables averaged four times the Prop 65 lead limits.

Detectable lead can be found in most foods you have eaten in your entire life including carefully selected and sourced superfoods. None of these elements are added by Opportuniteas, who follows good manufacturing practices to minimize or eliminate any contamination

What is Proposition 65?

Proposition 65 (“Prop 65”) is a California law formally known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. Prop 65 is a unique California only “right to know” law that requires products sold in California to bear warning notices about potential exposure to any of the over 800 substances listed by the state

Prop 65 warnings may be required for any product that exposes an individual in California to any chemical listed under the law. This is not just about food but includes any item that has the possibility of having any of these "chemicals". This includes electrical wires, jewelry, padlocks, schools, dishes, flashlights, coffee shops, clothing, cars, restaurants, TV’s, furniture, alcohol, diesel engines, amusement parks, parking lots, hardware stores, gas stations, hospitals, and just about any decent-sized business

Prop 65 does not ban any products from sale in California; it simply requires warning labels or signage whenever exposure could cause more than “one excess case of cancer in 100,000 individuals exposed to the chemical over a 70-year lifetime.” That allows anybody to bring a case by finding a listed chemical in a product even if it is present in an amount 1,000 times below the “no observable effect” level. A company can prove the level is meaninglessly low, but that is quite costly to do in court. Most companies end up settling with the plaintiff (even when they are not liable) to avoid the expense of litigation and then add the warning labels to everything

I hope this information helps settle any concerns you may have about Prop 65 and thesewarning labels.

For more information please visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_65_(1986)