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PART TWO:
THE CHILI FIELDS
Chilies start out safe. But by the time chili powder reaches the Mexican market, it can be tainted with lead.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Story by VALERIA GODINES and JENIFER B. McKIM/ The Orange County Register

This seems an unlikely place to look for the lead in candy that poisons children - here, where a miller opens a burlap bag, unleashing a river of maroon dried chilies into a chute. At this mill in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the grinders pound for a few ear-splitting minutes. Then out spills the soft, red powder that will smother Mexican treats.

Here is exactly where the search should begin.

U.S. health inspectors have looked at many things to uncover the origins of lead in candy. They've tested the candy wrappers. They've tested the clay pots some candy comes in. They've tested the candy itself.

But neither U.S. nor Mexican health agencies have done comprehensive testing on chili, even though it is the ingredient used in most candies testing dangerously high for lead.

The Orange County Register hired a laboratory to conduct 55 tests of fresh, dried and ground chili bought in Mexico. More than 90 percent of the chili-powder samples tested high for lead, shocking Mexican federal and state health officials, who say they will investigate.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials were taken by surprise when told about the Register's findings and also said they would look into the matter.

To find how lead gets into candy, the Register traced the trail backward from stores to the fields of Zacatecas, collecting samples along the way - including soil, well water, fresh chilies and chili powder. Many candy companies get chili from Zacatecas, which produces nearly half of Mexico's dried chili.

The Register focused on guajillo chili, a 6-inch, plump green pepper. The chili, which turns red when it's dried, is used to give candy a sweet-tart kick. Fresh chilies the Register tested straight from the farm contained no lead. But by the time chili powder reaches the public market, where some candy companies buy their chili, much of it is tainted.

In many cases, half a teaspoon is enough to poison a child.

Lead, which harms young children most, can cause irreversible damage. It can lower intelligence and cause stomach pain and kidney damage. And lead poisoning often goes undetected because the symptoms can be caused by many other things.

Mexico, which only began phasing out leaded gasoline in the mid-1990s, is about 30 years behind the United States in preventing lead poisoning. There is no routine lead testing of children.

Tough lead regulations have been passed, but they are rarely enforced. Some advances have been made in raising general awareness of lead in ceramics. But when it comes to chili, few in Mexico know of the dangers.

As with lead in candy, there is no single source of lead in chili. But dirt and debris are major factors, the Register found. To understand how lead gets into chili, you have to start at the beginning, in the farm fields, and follow the pepper as it makes the journey to the candy plants.

FARMS NOT THE CULPRIT

Jose "Pepe" Garcia Saldivar, a farmer in Zacatecas, has dealt with plagues, drought, floods and fungus. But lead?

He walks through his 5 acres of chili plants about 20 miles outside Ojo Caliente one September afternoon. Pests have damaged some of the guajillo crop, and a heavy rain has hit it hard. Garcia crouches to point out the damage. Then he looks up.

"If you do find any lead here, it would be good for us to know so we can do something about it," he said.

Garcia, 49, didn't choose farming. He was born into it, following his father's path. He doesn't know how to read or write, but he has memorized enough numbers to understand receipts.

When Mexico opened its markets in 1994, farmers like Garcia were devastated. U.S. corn, which is heavily subsidized, flooded the Mexican market. It only got worse when China, where labor is much cheaper, began exporting chili to Mexico.

"The buyers, the middlemen, used to come here and buy at a good price," Garcia said. "Now, the crops don't sell. It isn't worth anything. The government allowed this free trade, and it hasn't benefited us."

On this afternoon, Garcia, who usually wears a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots, is dressed up. He wears a beige cowboy hat, ironed shirt and nice pants. He wants to look professional when he sells his chili.

He takes his guajillo to a dryer about 10 miles from his farm. Despite making his best pitch, he loses money on his crops.

Again.

This is the fifth year in a row that's happened.

After he has sold his chilies, Garcia has no idea where they will end up. Maybe in a salsa bowl at a restaurant. Maybe in a family's kitchen. Maybe in a lollipop in the hand of an Orange County child.

Fresh chilies picked from Garcia's farm, as well as those from four other farms, showed no lead in laboratory tests. Soil from Garcia's chili field tested at 16 parts per million lead. Four other guajillo farms also had lead in the dirt, ranging from 18 ppm to 90 ppm. All soil has some lead in it, and lead experts weren't disturbed by the levels in these samples.

"It is unlikely that lead gets into fresh chilies in the fields because the vegetables and fruits generally don't take up metal from the soil," said Paul Bosland, a pepper expert from New Mexico State University. "Even if lots of lead was present in the soil, the leaves would absorb it, not the fruit." But there are other ways lead finds its way into chili powder during the journey to the candy factory.

SELLING CHILI

Shortly after dawn, they arrive at the dryer outside Ojo Caliente. A parade of beat-up pickups driven by tired chili farmers from all over the region rumbles through the concrete gate and parks on the weighing machine.

Cresencio Ortiz, wearing a belt buckle engraved with a fighting rooster, is waiting for them.

The 71-year-old flashes a big smile when a farmer approaches. Ortiz pulls out a thick wad of bills and begins peeling. In one minute, he becomes the owner of the chilies loaded in a truck.

Ortiz, a father of seven, is the middleman, buying the chilies from the farmers and then selling them to merchants or millers. He works at the dryer, which has 120 clients, some with two acres of chili and others with more than 100 acres.

It's high season on this September morning, and the 15 dryers in the Ojo Caliente region are in full swing. Men dash from one chili mound to another, comparing prices and quality. Threatening rain clouds make things more urgent, with workers yelling to get out the tarps to cover the chilies on the ground.

Drying season in Zacatecas has its rituals. It is a man's world. Middlemen from all over the state who haven't seen one another in eight months are happy to be reunited. They play cards to pass the time while the chilies dry. They share a smoke, sometimes a beer. They talk about their children, their grandchildren.

The dryers all look alike at first glance - concrete courtyards, some the size of football fields, surrounded by giant walls. What happens behind the walls depends on one important thing - where the chili is headed.

Chili heading directly to the United States or to Mexican companies with huge sales typically are cleaned thoroughly, inspected individually and packed into clean boxes. But tours of five dryers in Zacatecas revealed something quite different for chilies destined for small- time operators or local markets. They didn't get inspected individually. They didn't get packed into clean boxes. And they certainly didn't get washed.

It's cold at the dryer outside Ojo Caliente on this morning, but the men keep warm near the 10-foot tunnels where hot air blasts over the chilies for 24 hours, sending a delicious smell into the air. Officials at the dryers say the machines are powered by unleaded diesel or natural gas, not leaded gas.

When the chilies emerge on the racks, they are dried a deep, rusty red. The men spread the chilies on the concrete. They put the nice- looking chilies in one bunch and the bruised in another. The chilies often stay on the ground for 24 hours.

They shovel the chilies into sacks. Then the workers, wearing their boots, climb into the sacks and stomp to pack them tight.

"Sure, it's not very clean," Ortiz said. "But you won't eat it like that. You'll clean them first."

Ortiz echoes a common sentiment in Mexico, where the burden of clean produce falls to the consumer. Antibacterial solution is sold alongside fruits and vegetables in markets across the country.

At this dryer, dirt clings to some of Ortiz's dried chilies, as well as to chilies in dozens of other piles.

Two of Ortiz's whole guajillos from the dryer were tested at a laboratory. One came up clean, another had 0.5 ppm lead.

The California guideline for lead in candy is 0.2 ppm. The FDA guideline for lead in most food is 0.25 ppm, but there is no standard for chili or other spices. However, Richard Jacobs, a specialist at the FDA who has investigated lead in candy for years, said lead in food ingredients should not exceed 0.1 ppm.

Of three other whole guajillos from different dryers, two tested positive for lead.

On 18 additional guajillo samples, the laboratory rinsed the chilies and tested the runoff to determine whether dirt clinging to the chilies might be the source of lead. Four samples of the runoff contained lead.

It's the beginning of a problem that will get worse by the time the chilies leave the mill.

Ortiz and other middlemen have a big job ahead of them once they get the chilies out of the dryers. They'll pile the chilies into trucks and crisscross the country, going as far as Mexico City, 300 miles away. They have to find a buyer.

One of their first stops likely will be an hour away, in Aguascalientes, the capital of one of Mexico's smallest states, where Jesus Gonzalez works.

DIRTY CHILI

Gonzalez works in the heart of the agricultural market, one of Mexico's biggest. It's a city unto itself, complete with street names and restaurants.

A typical weekday finds hundreds of produce trucks zooming through the parking lots, where traffic laws mean nothing. Men with slabs of beef draped across their shoulders like capes hurry to the butcher. Women bustle past, their bags brimming with chilies. Drivers honk in frustration at merchants who dash across the street without looking.

They all have somewhere to be, something to buy or something to sell. There is a sense of purpose, excitement. A big-city excitement.

Gonzalez drives into this chaos every day to get to the four chili stores he owns.

He is a devout Roman Catholic. Portraits of saints hang in his stores. During the Cristero war in the 1920s, when an anti-church government clashed with the Catholic Church, villagers were relocated to big cities. Gonzalez's family was moved from a small village in Jalisco to Aguascalientes.

Some say he has money, but he doesn't put on airs. He drives a rusty pickup and wears rumpled clothes. His nieces and nephews who work for him say he's like a father to them.

His clients include small stores run by mothers in their neighborhoods and restaurant owners. Gonzalez has sold to candy companies in the past. He also relies on opportunities. When bigger companies face a shortage from their chili suppliers, they come to him and other chili sellers to fill the gap.

Gonzalez doesn't just sell whole, dried chilies. He's also a miller, the only one in the market who mills year- round.

His mill is in a middle- class neighborhood near the market, behind a black metal gate. A house is at the entrance. Fighting roosters crow in wire cages near the back next to bags of chili that have been in storage for two years.

Three workers spend their days pouring chilies into one mill. They don't wear masks or gloves. And, like scores of other millers in Mexico, they don't clean the chilies before they are ground.

FATTENING PROFITS

More than dirt gets into the bags. A 110-pound bag of dried guajillo goes for about $130. Because middlemen and farmers get paid by the pound, they sometimes weigh down the bags, interviews with at least a dozen chili workers showed.

Mills screen out some debris with visual inspections and magnets. When Roberto Reynoso, a worker at Gonzalez's mill, is asked about impurities in the chili, he pulls out a car-battery connector, rocks, ball bearings and other debris that he found in the bags. Reynoso estimates that eight of 10 bags that come to the mill contain junk.

Because the bags aren't labeled and can sit in a warehouse for years before the chilies get milled, it is impossible to trace them to the farm or middleman when a problem is discovered.

The mills' screens don't catch everything. Sometimes nails, rocks and dirt get ground up with the chili. And the mill itself can be a problem, especially if it has parts soldered together with lead. Over time, parts of the mill get ground up with the chili. The Register tested four chili-powder samples from Gonzalez's mill - three guajillo and one chile de arbol - and all contained dangerous levels of lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm to 1.3 ppm.

The Register toured five mills in Mexico and tested 25 chili-powder samples bought from major agricultural markets in four states - Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Jalisco and Michoacán. Some candy companies go to these markets to buy chili in bulk.

Twenty-three of 25 chili-powder samples tested positive for lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm lead to 4 ppm.

At 3 ppm, a child would only need to eat 2 grams, less than half a teaspoon, of chili to exceed the daily maximum lead level considered safe. In some cases, that would be just one lollipop or one candy packed in a clay pot, a common container for sticky Mexican candy.

Gonzalez didn't blink when told about the lead in his chili powder. He pointed out that the mill has a magnet, which catches metal, although it doesn't attract lead.

He said the cost would be great to clean the chili and label every bag. Every peso counts.

"What else can I do?" he asked.

"It is very common for people who sell bulk commodity to throw in dirt, rocks, depending on what the commodity is, so that they increase their profit margin by a few percent," said Stephen Rothenberg, senior medical researcher in Mexico who studies lead issues.

"What is surprising to me is that they are not washing the chili right before they mill it," Rothenberg said.

Mexican candy makers, however, weren't surprised.

"It's really dirty, dirty, dirty," said Maria de la Luz Garcia Cortes, whose family runs Fabrica de Dulces Cisne, a candy company in Morelia that has 40 employees. She said her company is careful to make sure the ingredients used are pure, and she won't let her children eat candy with chili unless she knows where it is from. "It has rats. They don't check it," she said. "You don't know how it is made."

Javier Arroyo of Mexican candy company Grupo Lorena, which uses sterilized chili for its products, said: "If you have dirty chili, you have lead." A Register analysis showed that at least 79 percent of the Mexican candies testing high for lead in U.S. and California laboratories contained chili as a main ingredient. Eliminating lead shouldn't be that difficult, experts say. "I assume that if the soil attached to the chili was washed off, it should reduce the lead in chili powder by at least an order of magnitude," said Jon Ericson, a University of California, Irvine, environmental scientist who has studied lead poisoning among children in Tijuana.

CLEANING UP?

Mexican government officials initially denied there were problems with chili powder.

"I don't believe it," said Jesus Gonzalez Najera, a government agricultural official in Zacatecas who helps farmers with subsidies.

But when told about the Register test results, Gonzalez Najera became concerned and vowed to look into the matter.

"We have to see what the problem is. There must be something in the milling process that is happening," he said. "What is the cause? This sounds very bad."

Jose Luis Flores, a federal health director in Mexico, also was taken aback by the findings. He wondered if chilies dried in the sun were picking up dirt or if food coloring containing lead was being used in chili powder.

"When you tell me this, I say, 'Oh, goodness,' " Flores said. "Imagine how worried I am now."

In California, officials with the Department of Health Services initially said they couldn't act on tainted chili because they can't collect samples in Mexico.

But in an interview in February, they promised to work with Mexican officials.

"We know that some of these lead sources are in the ingredients, but that is important information to share with the Mexican officials so that as those assessments of risk factors are conducted the proper action can be taken," said Kevin Reilly, the state's deputy director of prevention services.

"I think that's valuable information, absolutely, and it should go into working with the ... manufacturers in Mexico on how to eliminate that as a potential source."

Although the FDA has suspected chili as a source of lead, U.S. officials also were surprised by the Register's high lead results in chili.

"If you have some good data that would help us along, that is one good thing that we would see from what you're doing," said Terry Troxell, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages. "We've looked at quite a few candy samples over the last few years, and most of the levels are below 0.25, and so I guess I'm a little surprised that you're seeing 4 parts per million in chili." The FDA issued an April 9 warning about Mexican candy, citing problems with chili powder. The move came weeks after the Register asked the agency why it hadn't done more about the candy ingredient.

SETTING AN EXAMPLE

Not all chili milled in Mexico is contaminated. At a chili mill in an industrial neighborhood in Guadalajara, about three hours from Aguascalientes, things are done a bit differently.

The chili here isn't just cleaned, it's sprayed with chlorinated water. It doesn't touch the floor. Workers wear hairnets and aprons.

It is ground in sterile, stainless-steel mills that cost $15,000 each – more than seven times what some smaller milling operations pay for their equipment. Plastic curtains surround the mills to prevent dust from sifting in. The chili leaves this building in labeled bags, so if there is a problem, the chili can be traced. Then, it is sent to a laboratory in Mexico City to be screened for lead, bacteria and other problems.

This isn't just any chili. It's chili going into candy headed for the United States. But that doesn't stop the lead-laced candy from ending up in the hands of Orange County children.

Tomorrow: Some candy companies in Mexico make two versions of their treats – one cheaper for local children and one more costly to meet U.S. standards. But both versions make their way to Orange County.

Q: How much Mexican candy has chili on it?

Tests suggest lead introduced in powder
More than 100 samples are taken throughout the chili process - from field samples to ground chili - in four Mexican states.

By VALERIA GODINES/ The Orange County Register

The Orange County Register examined chili because Mexican candy is often smothered in it, and health officials suspect it is a major source of lead.

The Register traveled to four Mexican states, collecting more than 100 samples throughout the chili process – starting in the fields with soil and water and ending in Orange County stores with salsa products. Tests were done on 55 samples of fresh and dried chilies and chili powder bought in Mexico.

Chili powder is where lead appears to be introduced, according to test results and interviews with Mexican candy companies. More than 90 percent of the chili powder tested for the Register contained lead.

The chili powder samples were mostly guajillo because it's the type of chili used most often in Mexican candies. Six ground chile de arbol samples were tested as well because it occasionally is used in candy.

At an agricultural market in Morelia, Michoacán, the Register bought a sample of ground guajillo from a stall that sells to candy companies. The sample was sent to Forensic Analytical in Hayward, a lab the state uses to test candy. The chili powder had 1.5 parts per million lead. The state standard for lead in candy is 0.2 ppm.

A sample of tamarind used in many Mexican candies was bought from the same market. It also had 1.5 ppm lead.

In July, the Register went to the agricultural market and a mill in Aguascalientes. Ten chili powder samples - eight guajillo and two chile de arbol - from the mill and stores in the market were tested. Some of each variety contained lead. Eight of the 10 samples ranged from 0.3 ppm to 1.3 ppm.

The samples were kept in individual plastic baggies, labeled and stored at room temperature. At the laboratory, samples were dissolved in a mix of nitric acid and deionized water, then heated. It's the same technique used for testing lead in candy.

It was unclear how the chili was being contaminated by lead, so additional testing was done on chilies as well as on water, soil, tamarind and other candy ingredients.

The Register went to Zacatecas in early September, during the harvest of guajillo chilies, to collect samples from the fields, dryers and agricultural markets.

On the advice of lead experts, during the collection of soil samples, a plastic spoon was used instead of metal to avoid tainting the results. Well water from the farms was collected in plastic bottles.

Since the Register could not obtain a fresh-vegetable permit from the U.S. government to send fresh chilies to the lab in California for testing, a laboratory in Guadalajara - Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnologia y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco - was hired. This is the lab used by many candy companies in Jalisco. The Register sent five fresh chili samples and three tamarind-pulp samples. The lab extracted liquid from them and then used a technique called atomic absorption spectroscopy to analyze for lead content. It has a detection limit of 0.2 ppm (the same limit used at Forensic). None of those samples had lead.

In mid-September, more samples were collected in Zacatecas. Thirty-three sam- ples - chili powder, soil, well water and whole dried chili - were sent to Forensic Analytical. Once again, the chili powder had the highest lead levels.

All of the 13 chili-powder samples tested positive for lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm to 3 ppm. The dirt had trace amounts of lead. Two separate samples containing chili powder along with sugar, food coloring and lime were tested. One contained lead. The other did not. Of five samples of whole dried chilies, three contained lead.

The Register then sent 18 whole dried chili samples to the California lab. The lab put them in containers, rinsed them and tested the run-off for lead.

Of the 18 run-off samples, four tested above the lab's detection limit of 5 parts per billion. Then it tested the chilies after they were rinsed and found no lead. It appears the lead was caused by dirt clinging to some of the chilies.

The Register asked stakeholders for their ideas about how to solve the problem of lead in candy.

Q: How can chili milling be improved to keep lead out of candy?

Jesus Gonzalez
Chili miller in Aguascalientes

A: Labeling the individual bags that are sent to the millers would help. That way, if a problem was discovered, they could trace it back to its source. The problem with that, though, is that it would add costs to smaller operations that are already struggling.

Heliodoro Perez Tabares
General manager of HASA, a chili plant in Guadalajara that Dulces Vero built in response to U.S. concerns about contamination in chili

A: The chilies must be cleaned thoroughly. At the plant, every single chili for export to the United States is opened, emptied of the seeds and any dirt that may have gotten in through cracks or holes and specially cleaned. Workers wear masks and protective clothing.

Ubaldo A. de la Torre
Sales and marketing manager at the Vero corporate office in San Antonio, Texas

A: Better communication with the Food and Drug Administration, which posts notices on its Web site about problem candies and chili coming across the border. The problems don't get reported to the actual company or factory that produced the product. We could track down the actual batch that it came from to see what went wrong, if something went wrong, and work it out with the FDA.

Should you be worried about your salsa and cooking sauces in light of problems with Mexican chili powder?

Not really, lab tests and experts indicate.

The Register tested 25 U.S. and Mexican products made with chili - from Lawry's hot taco seasoning to Charitos corn sticks to Valentina Salsa Picante. Twenty-four of the products, bought from Orange County stores, had no detectable levels of lead. One, Búfalo brand Salsa Picante, had 0.2 parts per million lead, but the lead level fell below U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for most food.

The Register also tested products from smaller companies, including chili-covered peanuts and spicy pork rinds, which also had no lead.

In November, California health officials issued a health advisory about lead in fried grasshoppers covered with chili - a traditional Mexican treat. The grasshoppers imported from Oaxaca had high levels of lead.

Children are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning. But adults can be harmed by high levels of lead in their blood, which can make men and women infertile. It can also damage the fetus in a pregnant woman.

The amount of chili in salsa probably isn't a concern for adults, one expert said.

"The thought is that unless lead levels in your blood are extraordinarily high (in adults), you won't have any health effects," said Robert Lynch, an associate professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Oklahoma who has studied lead in Mexican candies.

"You have had the neurological development you are going to get. Most of the development happens before 7 years. My guess is for adults that it just doesn't matter. My guess is that (salsa) would get really diluted down to a level that it wouldn't be a problem," Lynch said.

"If kids were eating it, it could be a problem, but in this country, a lot of kids aren't eating that much salsa and hot sauce."

But they are eating a lot of chili-smothered candy.

"I think the stuff on the candy is a real issue," Lynch said.