That cancer warning on your favorite protein powder might actually be proof it's the cleanest option in your pantry. I'm pulling back the curtain on the Just Ingredients lawsuit that's been blowing up your social feeds and covering why it might actually prove they're one of the good guys.

California's Prop 65 warnings have created a bizarre reality where companies using real, organic ingredients get penalized while synthetic alternatives fly under the radar. As an environmental attorney, I'll break down why Just Ingredients chose to stick with whole foods rather than switch to artificial flavors, even when faced with legal challenges.

By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped to see through the social media outrage and make truly informed choices about your supplements, staying "informed but not afraid" in this confusing wellness landscape.

In this episode, we're chatting about:

• The truth behind California's Proposition 65 warnings and what they actually mean

• Why whole food supplements might trigger warning labels while synthetic ones don't

• The difference between naturally occurring trace elements and dangerous contamination

• How Just Ingredients maintains transparency through rigorous testing protocols (see their press release here)

• Why I still trust these products for my own family despite the controversy

Episode Resources

Get 10% off Our Place Titanium Pro Pans with code WENDY10

Get 10% off Just Ingredients with code WENDYKATHRYN

Read The Shownotes Here

  📍 Welcome back to another episode of the Toxin Freeish podcast. As always, I'm your host, Wendy and Environmental Toxins attorney Turn Clean Living Coach. And today's episode is a deep dive on something that is spreading across social media, and that is a lawsuit that was filed against everyone's favorite wellness brand and one of my favorite wellness brands.

📍 📍 Just 📍 ingredients now. The 📍 lawsuit was actually filed last fall and. It's funny because for me, this is like kind of old news, but it's making the rounds again. You know how social media is. And so I wanted to take this opportunity because I've been getting a lot of questions about it. 📍 How do I feel about it?

📍 What does it all mean? 📍 Do I still support, just ingredients? And so today's episode, we're gonna dive deep. You're gonna know everything that happened. We're gonna go step by step, and you're gonna find out exactly what I think. Let's unpack 📍 it. 

📍 But before we get started, here is a word from our sponsor, me. So this podcast is 100% funded by you. I don't take paid sponsorships. I don't take paid ads. And the only way that the editing and the recording and the promotion of this podcast happens is through your generosity. I share affiliate links to products and brands that I love that you will literally find in my house, and in today's case, in my kitchen.

And when you use those affiliate links to purchase the commission goes to help fund this podcast. So thank you. 

Right before I started record on this episode, I had a protein shake this morning and it was the 📍 just ingredients, strawberries and cream protein. It is my absolute favorite. Whenever springtime or summertime comes along, I ditch all the chocolate and I love the strawberries and the peaches and all the fruit filled protein patterns that just ingredients has, and that's an an important lead in to the topic that we are about to dive into, which is lead, 📍 lead and heavy 📍 metals.

Protein powders 📍 and what that means and whether or not you should be concerned about it.

This entire topic revolves around 📍 📍 Proposition 65, which is a California specific law. So if you don't live in the state of California, you might have never heard of this before, but all of this starts from a rule in California that was passed in the eighties that was all about letting consumers know.

Hey, 📍 there are contaminants 📍 that can cause cancer or reproductive toxicity or birth defects in specific products. And the state of California really wanted the residents to know, Hey, don't buy these things. They wanted to dissuade brands from using toxic chemicals in their products, and so they forced brands to put a label on their packaging, whatever it was they were selling, whether it was 📍 a crockpot,   📍 whether it was a supplement.

📍  Whether it was nail 📍 polish,  whether it was dishware, whatever it was, if there was a certain level of any kind of chemical that they had deemed on this list, which by the way, now in California, there's 900 chemicals on that list. They had to put a 📍 📍 Prop 65 warning label. And if you live in California, you know these things are, they're everywhere.

📍 You go to Disneyland, they're everywhere. 📍 You go to your dentist office, they're everywhere. 📍 They're all over grocery stores, everywhere you go, parking lots. I mean, they're just, they're literally everywhere. And the idea was, I. Brands won't wanna put this warning label on their products, so they're gonna stop using these really bad chemicals and the public will become more educated and understand.

And if there's a Prop 65 label on something, they're less likely to buy it. So the idea was how to, 📍 how do we make companies do better? How do we make them clean up their products and stop adding toxic chemicals into their products? As an environmental attorney and somebody who really has spent her entire life lobbying and advocating for cleaning up toxic chemicals out of our, out of our environment, our water, our food, all of it, like I'm, I'm here for it.

I'm so here for it. I support the intent of Prop 65. I do. Okay. And you know what? It's working and it's not just working for the people in California. What happens is when the companies are 📍 selling in California and they 📍 📍 don't wanna put Prop 65 labels on their products, 📍 they reformulate 'em. So companies stopped putting toluene.

In nail polish, they stopped putting methylene chloride in pain strippers that were being sold at Home Depot, and the whole rest of the country benefited from this because the companies that are making those products aren't just gonna make a formulation to sell to consumers in California and then sell a different one in the 49 other states.

Right. No, they completely changed their formulas entirely.

So it's good for everyone when it comes to that and, and when it comes to toxic chemicals that are being intentionally added into products, I think Prop 65 is phenomenal.

We even have some really good population data that shows that people in California, 📍 their blood, they have less concentrations 📍 of some of these chemicals than in other places in the country. And so we actually do know this is working.

Before I dive into this episode, which is very specifically about whole foods and heavy metal content in our soil and in real food, and when that real food is being used in supplements, very specifically, that is my issue. I take lead poisoning and heavy metal poisoning very seriously.

And you can go back and listen to episode 72, which is an episode that I did with Eric from Eric. Everything 📍 📍 Lead where we talk about where are kids getting lead poisoning and what do we need to do about it. And we are talking about added lead when you have a 📍 baby bottle that has paint 📍 on it and that paint has lead.

and

it looks like cinnamon and so you can just fill it, fill it with lead. So it was, we're talking about intentionally and or negligently added contaminants of a heavy metal or lead. What I'm talking about today, I. Is an   📍 organic strawberry   📍 that is grown in soil that has trace amounts of either naturally occurring or man created like lead contamination in the soil.

Two very different things. I also talk about the numbers and what you're actually looking at as far as lead and heavy metals in real food in episode 📍 📍 1 0 1. So I have two other episodes that you can go listen to that can supplement the conversation that I'm having today.

Today's specifically about whole food, just ingredients and Prop 65 and this lawsuit. Okay.

So I already told you the purpose of Prop 65 is to make companies do the right thing to incentivize good behavior. We don't want you putting toxic chemicals into products and selling them to people in California. There is an assumption that people have, that a Prop 65 label means that there is a certain amount of that chemical that reaches a safety level that is concerning.

So if they see that Prop 65 label that says this product contains,, a chemical that either, you know, leads to reproductive toxicity or whatever, whichever one, whichever section that it falls under, that, that means there are high amounts. Of that chemical to the point that there has been a safety threshold reached and that is not true.

So for lead in particular, if I were to look for what is the lowest amount that we should shoot for, there is an initiative called Closer to Zero, which is the F FDA's kind of like, uh, we wish we could get there, we wish we could get closer to zero. When it comes to trace amounts of heavy metals in lead, and the amount that people are being exposed to.

And if we were to be able to enact this closer to zero, right, which is how good could we get it? Knowing that there are heavy metals and lead naturally occurring in our environment and contaminated from. Years and years and years and years 📍 of burning fossil 📍 fuels that had lead 📍 in gasoline from manufacturing facilities, polluting from pesticide manufacturers, from all mining activities.

This is where all of this come from, comes from. It all contaminates, even if we're not near any of those facilities. Aerial deposition, all of it goes up into the atmosphere. It travels around and it redeposits. So you don't even have to be on a farm that's anywhere near these manufacturing facilities to continually have recontamination.

So until we actually take very seriously the regulation of pollution in this country, then we will always have a heavy metal problem always.

So just to illustrate, the Prop 65 limit for a label is 📍 0.5 micrograms okay. And the closer to zero number that the FDA is like, this isn't the law and we can't make you do it, but sure would be really, really nice if we could get to this limit. The Prop 65 amount is 6%. 6% of that closer to zero limit. And I talk more in depth about the numbers in this in episode 1 0 1, but I just wanted to give you that illustration for purposes of this context.

So if you are shopping in California and you see a Prop 65 label on something. You might be thinking, oh my gosh, this has a lot of heavy metals in it, but actually that might be the healthiest choice for you on shelves, and here's why.

So when we're talking about supplements, companies have a few options. They can use artificial flavors. Which is bad. We know we don't, that's not good for us. We don't want artificial flavors. They could use natural flavors, which   📍 just ingredients absolutely will not use natural flavors in their products.

They could source real fruit. They could filter it. So filtering out the heavy metals also filters out a lot of that whole fruit. So when you do that, you don't get all the benefits of having real food or real fruit in all the nutrients and the antioxidants and the flavonoids and the polyphenols, and the vitamins and the minerals, all the things that.

Are really good for you and ironically, help you detox heavy metals. You don't get that anymore, right? So you just have this flavoring that comes from real food, but it's been filtered out and you might be able to filter down the heavy metals below that 0.5 micrograms, but you're also filtering out all the good stuff too.

So just ingredients. When they built their company, they, they built it on the premise that they wanted it to be. Whole real food, everything. Every single thing that they carry is made with whole food. So 📍 all of their supplements, 📍 all of their multivitamins, every single thing they make, there's real food.

And the only way to flavor something with a real food is to use the whole fruit, and they source organic fruits. And when you source organic real fruit, the amount of fruit that you have to use in order to make something really flavorful sometimes can be a lot. And so I'm just gonna use strawberries as an example.

If you were to go to the grocery store and buy 📍 a bundle of organic strawberries 📍 and wash it 📍 and cut it up and 📍 put it in a bowl and eat, I don't know, one or two servings, which I listen all spring, all summer, I do that all day long. 📍 There will be more trace heavy metals in those fresh strawberries than you're gonna find in just ingredients protein powder.

And I think that that is the piece that is so unfortunate in this conversation because I do not believe that Prop 65 intended to punish companies that are making the healthiest products for consumers. And when you put a whole food, a whole fruit into a product instead of natural flavors, fillers, artificial things, you are providing a product that is the healthiest version of that product.

The other core value that just ingredients has is testing and transparency. So they're one of the only companies that has third party testing done at the source. So when they purchase that fruit at the source, it's done. Then they bring it and they mix it with the other ingredients that they have in those products, and they test it again.

And then when they package it for sale, they test it again, and you can find those results. Right on their website and for years they've consistently shared all of that testing and they have had language on their website where they have said, we test below Prop 65 limits. I have seen all of their testing 'cause I'm that weird person that knows about this when I check 'em all the time and they are always below prop 65 limits.

So 📍 📍 why did they get sued and 📍 📍 what's the deal with the lawsuit anyway?

In order to explain the lawsuit, you have to know how Prop 65 works. Unlike every other environmental regulation in the state of California, the way that Prop 65 is enforced is private lawsuits, and it is big money and big business in the state of California. Okay. Like there are law firms and organizations that this is all they do for a living.

They sue under Prop 65. And unfortunately because over the last decade there have been more companies who are , trying to be healthier, trying to produce products and supplements that really get to that health conscious consumer. There is now a target audience for these lawsuits. Any company that's using real Whole Foods, they're all getting sued, okay?

And now you might be thinking, well, well why are they getting sued? If they have all the testing that shows that they are below the limit? So let's get into that.

The Environmental Research Council is the organization that sued them and they, I think up to date, I don't know, they've sued. I mean, you can go on their website and the list is very, very, very, very long. Where they have sued and all it takes. Is a question of doubt, right? And according to their website, they have tested, they have 📍 10 products of just ingredients that they've tested that they claim potentially have amounts that are slightly over that 0.5.

Now, nobody has seen the testing. Just ingredients has said these are allegations only. Right? So nobody really knows what's happening behind those settlement negotiations because this is how Prop 65 works. You give a brand notice and say, I'm suing you. Okay, and then you go straight into settlement negotiations and under Prop 65 and the attorney's fees for the plaintiffs or whoever, sues get 100% of their attorney's fees back, plus civil penalties of $2,500 per product.

Per day per violation. We are talking big money. Okay. So the environmental research organization that's sued, let's say they have testing that shows maybe, if, you know, if you take a 📍 scoop. There's, you know, 0.5, you're showing there's 0.5 micrograms in it. But let's say it's a hefty scoop and there's 0.52 in it or whatever, or it's slightly above.

And you can show that, right? If you can, if you can even put enough doubt that there's a possibility that there is even one test in one in a thousand, you could potentially win this lawsuit. And so it's within brand's interest to settle them. Because you're talking a lot of freaking money here.

Okay. And I have worked with so many brands that are selling in the state of California that will not even touch this. They have the testing that shows they have never gone above those limits, and it doesn't matter. They put the Prop 65 label on their packaging because they said it is not worth the litigation risk.

Anybody can sue us. Anybody can send something to a crappy lab and get crappy results. Anybody can cast doubt, anybody can take us to court, and the impact of that is significant enough that it's not worth it. The other issue with Prop 65, other than this civil litigation, like basically people make money off of suing, is that if you are a company with 10 people or less, you're completely exempt.

So if you go to a store, a health food store, and you have four protein powders on the shelf, and one of them is all synthetic and garbage and crap, and there's no prop 65 warning on it, okay? You look at that and you're like, oh, there's no prop 6 65 warning on it, and maybe you have another one that has better ingredients, but it's full of natural flavors and there's no prop 65 warning on it.

But then you have another one that is. Whole Foods and no Prop 65 warning on it, and then you have just ingredients and they have a Prop 65 warning on it. You are going to assume that the ones that don't have those Prop 65 labels are better and or don't have the same like trace heavy metal content and that that might not be true at all.

That just might be a smaller company. And that smaller company might be under that 10 employee exclusion, but it also just might be a company that's not. But they don't make enough money to be a target because when the only thing that you get outta suing companies is money. You're not gonna sue small companies.

You're gonna sue the big companies.

So to be clear, I don't know what's happening with the actual lawsuit, with just ingredients, because I, you know, I'm not privy to that information. I don't think anybody's privy to that information right now. But what happened was after that lawsuit was filed, just ingredients started putting Prop 65 labels on a handful of their products, the ones that require.

Lots of fruit or lots of chocolate. Those are the ones that typically, you're gonna see those trace amounts are gonna be a little bit higher in, in the ones that have higher fruit content. And again, that whole fruit is full of all of the things that helps you process and detox from heavy metal. So we want that healthy food.

So just ingredients had a few options. They could have filtered their fruit, they said no. They could have, you know, switched to natural flavors. They said no. They were like, we will continue to make whole real food supplements and they are unwavering. And so in order to do that and to protect themselves as a company, they went ahead and they started putting Prop 65 labels on those handful of products

So if you live in California, you will start to see Prop 65 labels on a handful of just ingredients packaging. If you are buying things online, you will start to see a notice at checkout if you have a California address that it's being shipped to. That also has the Prop 65 warning on it. And one of the questions I get a ton from people when they are looking at products that have Prop 65 labels, and again.

Tons of companies preemptively just use it just to avoid lawsuits and they say, why can't the company just explain it on the label, like right under the Prop 65 label? Why don't they just say, you know, naturally occurring like trace amounts of heavy metals found in organic strawberries. And the answer is they're not allowed.

They're not allowed. They can't do anything where the Prop 65 warning is to undo or to, you know, call that Prop 65 label or to interfere.

With that

Prop 65 Label. Now, the law specifically says they encourage companies to educate their consumers, and so on their website or in locations on their product descriptions, they can educate and explain it.

So if you go onto the Just Ingredients website, they will say on there that they test consistently. Under Prop 65, but because of the natural occurring heavy metals found in organic, you know, whether it's their chocolate or whether it's their, whatever it is that is the product that they're talking about, that it's because it's real food.

And you can find that it's really unfortunate that these companies aren't allowed to put that like directly on or under that Prop 65 label, but they're just not allowed.

So over the last six months, I've kind of watched that new language happen. I've heard from people in California, they've seen the Prop 65 label and something kind of blew up two weeks ago on the internet, and it was the accusation that just ingredients. Went back to the original language that specifically stated that, you know, a hundred percent of the time they are always under Prop 65 testing.

And the accusation was that it, they were purposely misleading the public and just ingredients. Put a press release out a few days after that kind of went viral on the internet and they said. Hey, we changed this language to be in compliance with Prop 65, but we just updated our website. They had added and launched a bunch of new products during that time period, and during the update the software update, some of the old copy on some of the product pages went reverted back.

And they said it was an honest mistake and the response from the internet was, you're lying. It was so dramatic and it was so over the top. And here's what I have to say about this. Regardless of whether you think just ingredients or the owner Carlin. Or Dr. Shred, or Dr. Michelle or all of these people that are involved with just ingredients, regardless of what you think of them personally and whether you believe them.

I will say this from a legal perspective, from an attorney's perspective, if you are in the middle of a lawsuit over how you are complying with Proposition 65, and that means the language on your website is being scrutinized in court. You do not purposely put language that will put your case at risk.

That is just stupid. So they're not stupid. I, and I don't, I choose to believe from that perspective that it was a genuine, honest mistake. The other thing that people have said about them is, well, that Prop 65 label warning should go to the rest of the country. Everybody in the country should know that just ingredients, uses real fruit.

That has, you know, heavy metals in it so people can make, you know, informed decisions for themselves. And I so vehemently disagree with that position because if a protein product showed up. At my doorstep or like my neighbor's doorstep here in Virginia that had that warning on it, they wouldn't, they would think it was toxic.

They would think that, that like, why are you putting this warning on this, you know, protein powder that is literally nothing but. Whole food ingredients saying that it like has, lead that can cause cancer. And I just think that California is an anomaly and the rest of the country doesn't understand what California's up to.

And if we were to take this law nationwide, that would be one thing. If there was like education and understanding, again, remember 0.5 micrograms, we're not talking about like this is over any health limit. It's simply you had their strawberries in here. Like that's really what it is. And so, no, I think it would actually mislead the consumer, if we were to actually take Prop 65, which is something that is kind of part of the fabric and thread of the culture in California at this point.

And try to tell companies, oh, you also have to put this label on nationwide because people just won't understand. You just confuse them. Make them afraid. And then what would happen is you would be encouraging consumers to then go buy products that are full of natural flavors because that Right, or that are less healthy for them.

You would be encouraging them to choose less healthy options because the whole food option is the healthier option.

So here are my takeaways on this entire thing. 📍 Whole Foods are always the better option. Always, I am somebody who, when I read a label, I wanna see real food. That's it. I just wanna see real food. And that is something that just ingredients offers and it's something that there's like really not a whole lot of other options out there that stand by that policy that they will only use real whole foods.

The other thing is Prop 65 warnings don't always mean a company is doing the wrong thing. Just like I explained, it actually means this company is doing the right thing. And finally what I care about, testing and transparency. I love that. Just ingredients, posts the heavy metal testing right on their website.

You can see it. If you email them, they'll give you even more information about it. That's what I care about. I care about transparency and testing.

and

are easily one of the cleanest brands on the market. I actually sitting here, I have like all their products. Listen, my kids. Use these protein powders. My kids drink these electrolytes. I would never in a million years give my kids something from a company who intentionally misled or intentionally contaminated a product or was not transparent.

And we use a lot of just ingredients products. I love them as a brand,

I love that through all of this, they have held their head high, and I really encourage everybody to read the press release that they put out. I will link it in the show notes that you can take a look at it.

It's been so disheartening to 📍 see one of the only whole food brands on the market, you know, get dragged through the mud and go through this cancel culture. When they really do produce one of the best options for supplements, protein powders, flavor electrolytes, and personal care products on the market.

Some of the cleanest that you can get, they are providing.

I will continue to support them as a brand, and I do have a discount code and a link in the show notes if you want to also show your support for them and try some of their amazing whole food based products.

If this episode helped you think critically about Prop 65, if you learned something new, please share it with a friend or even share it in those crunchy Facebook groups.

Let's stay informed but not afraid. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week.