California Proposition 65 and Snake Oil

Why you see this warning

If you shop with us from California, you'll see the notice above on Snake Oil product pages and in your cart. It's there because California's Proposition 65 requires it, not because anything about Snake Oil has changed.

Every production lot of Snake Oil is tested by an accredited third-party lab for lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. Our results sit well inside the limits set by the FDA, the World Health Organization and the European Food Safety Authority. Prop 65 uses a different yardstick, and that yardstick is what triggers the label.

What Proposition 65 is

Proposition 65 is a California law passed by ballot in 1986. It keeps a list of roughly 900 chemicals and requires a warning on any product sold in California that could expose someone to a listed chemical above a level the state sets. Lead is on the list. So is acrylamide, which forms when coffee beans roast, which is why your coffee cup carries the same warning in a California café, along with the parking garage, the hotel lobby and the bag of potato chips.

Prop 65 is a right-to-know law, not a safety standard. It doesn't say a product is unsafe. It says: this product contains a listed chemical above California's notice level, and you have the right to know that before you buy.

Why the notice level is so low

For lead, California's notice level is 0.5 micrograms per day. The state arrives at that number by taking the lowest exposure that showed no effect in studies and dividing it by 1,000. One thousand. That built-in margin is why the warning appears on so much ordinary food.

For comparison, the FDA's interim reference level for lead, the amount it uses to decide whether a food needs action, is 8.8 micrograms per day for women of childbearing age and 2.2 micrograms per day for children. A stick of Snake Oil contributes about 2 micrograms on our highest-testing lot to date, and below the lab's detection floor on others, from the botanicals and mineral salts that make it work. A serving of sweet potato or spinach lands in the same range, which is why the FDA's own Total Diet Study finds trace lead across the grocery store.

Where it comes from

Lead, cadmium and arsenic occur naturally in soil and water. Plants take them up as they grow, alongside the minerals we want. Snake Oil is built on botanicals like milk thistle and ginger, plus mineral salts for electrolytes, and trace metals ride along with them the same way they ride along with oats, rice, leafy greens and root vegetables. There's no manufacturing step that adds them and no formula change that could remove them without removing the plants.

What we do about it

• Every lot is tested by ICP-MS (the standard method for trace metals) at an independent, accredited lab before it ships.
• Our co-manufacturer runs an FDA-registered facility under federal cGMP rules.
• The numbers on this page and on our heavy-metals page come straight from those certificates.

Read more

We wrote a longer piece on how heavy metals get into powders, how to read a lab report, and how Snake Oil compares to everyday food: Heavy metals in Snake Oil, in plain English.

For the state's own explanation of the law, see P65Warnings.ca.gov.