EDIBLE plants grown in city gardens can contain dangerous levels of lead.
Kimberly Gray and colleagues at Northwestern University in Illinois tested plants grown in 17 gardens in Chicago. Levels of lead in onions and radishes often exceeded 10 micrograms per gram (μg/g) when the plant was dried, and some herbs and leafy vegetables such as rhubarb had higher levels still. Dried coriander from one garden contained over 39 μg/g of lead (The Science of the Total Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j. scitotenv.2003.08.009). That could lead to people ingesting more than the daily safety limit set by the US Food and Drug…
