Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead

For our tests, CR selected a range of bestselling dairy, beef, and plant-based protein supplements, including protein powders and ready-to-drink protein shakes.

We purchased multiple samples of each product, including two to four distinct lots, over a three-month period beginning last November. CR bought the products anonymously from a variety of sources, including popular online retailers like Amazon and Walmart, and at supermarkets and health food stores in New York state, such as the Vitamin Shoppe and Whole Foods Market. Then CR tested samples from multiple lots of each product for total protein, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other elements. Because the results are based on an average of these samples, which were collected over a specific period of time, they may not mirror current contaminant levels in every product. Even so, the findings highlight why consumers should carefully consider the role of protein powders and shakes in their diet. For more details on our testing methods and results, see our methodology sheet (PDF).

All products met or exceeded their label claim of protein in our tests, offering between 20 to 60 grams of protein per serving. Lead was the main heavy metal that emerged as an issue. About 70 percent of products we tested contained over 120 percent of CR’s level of concern for lead, which is 0.5 micrograms per day. Three products also exceeded our level of concern for cadmium and inorganic arsenic, toxic heavy metals that have been classified as a probable human carcinogen and known human carcinogen, respectively, by the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Prior to publication, CR contacted the manufacturers of all 23 products we tested and shared with them our results and methodology. Seven companies did not respond to our requests for comment: BSN, Dymatize, Jocko Fuel, Muscle Milk, Owyn, PlantFusion, and Transparent Labs. Optimum Nutrition declined to comment, and Huel did not respond to questions about the amount of cadmium found in its product. 

Of those that responded, many say that lead is a naturally occurring element that is difficult to avoid, particularly in plant-based products. Eight companies—Equip Foods, Garden of Life, KOS, Momentous, Muscle Meds, Muscle Tech, Orgain, and Vega—say they test both their ingredients and finished products for heavy metals. 

A spokesperson for Huel says that its ingredients undergo “rigorous testing” and that the company is “confident in the current formulation and safety of the products.” Naked Nutrition sources its ingredients from “select suppliers” that provide documentation attesting that they were checked for heavy metals, says James Clark, chief marketing officer. “We take our customers’ health very seriously,” he says, noting that Naked Nutrition has requested a third-party test of its Mass Gainer powder in response to CR’s findings.

John Koval, a spokesperson for Abbott, which makes Ensure, says that the lead levels CR found in its shakes are low for a product made with plant protein and that “consumers can be assured the product is safe.” A spokesperson for Quest says that the levels of lead CR detected in its products are “evidence that our robust food safety programs are working effectively.”

Spokesperson Allie Droze says that Vega “complies with all required safety standards and regulations” and that CR’s cadmium findings are “inconsistent” with the company’s regular testing results. She adds that the firm operates under California Proposition 65 consent decrees—legally binding settlement agreements that may allow companies to adhere to higher thresholds. 

Such agreements are typically signed to resolve claims that a company violated a California law requiring that businesses warn consumers before exposing them to certain harmful chemicals. In total, Vega has paid about $336,000 in penalties to resolve allegations made in 2013 and 2018 that its products contained high levels of lead, cadmium, or other heavy metals without appropriate warning. As part of the settlements, Vega admitted no wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, Vega renamed the plant-based protein powder we analyzed and changed its sourcing practices for a key ingredient. The company now sources its pea protein—which is the first listed ingredient in the rebranded Vega Protein + Recovery—from North America instead of China. “Because naturally occurring heavy metal levels in plant proteins can reflect the soil in which crops are grown, this sourcing change is relevant to any testing considerations,” Droze says.

Momentous also recently conducted a “massive overhaul” of its products to improve sourcing and “clean up formulas” for its dairy and plant-based protein powders, says spokesperson Will McClaran. “The Momentous products [CR] tested have been discontinued and are no longer commercially available,” McClaran says. (Discontinued products are marked with a footnote in the chart above. We included them in our results because protein supplements have a long shelf life and consumers may still have them in their pantries.)

Spokespeople for Garden of Life US and Orgain say their products are safe for daily use despite CR’s recommended limits. They also specified that the companies’ limits for heavy metals are determined by closely following the latest food safety guidance from the FDA, EPA, World Health Organization, and European Food Safety Authority.

Most of those organizations do not have limits or guidelines for heavy metals in protein powders or dietary supplements, particularly with regard to lead. The EPA does not regulate lead levels in food but has set an action level of 10 parts per billion for lead in tap water. (The concentration of lead we found in the Garden of Life and Orgain products was 61 and 15 ppb, respectively.) The FDA has not set any action levels for lead in protein powders or shakes. The WHO has published no guidance on lead in supplements and, through its joint committee with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has said there is no level of lead that is safe to consume weekly. The maximum amount of lead permitted in food supplements according to the EFSA is 3,000 ppb (3 mg/kg), a level that CR’s food safety experts say is far too high to be health protective.

Momentous and Vega say their products are independently tested to ensure they meet standards set by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency. To obtain certification by the NSF, dietary supplements must adhere to the group’s limits of 10 micrograms per day for lead and inorganic arsenic, and 4.1 micrograms per day for cadmium.

Muscle Meds says it tests its products to ensure compliance with a similar lead limit, 10 micrograms per serving. Naked Nutrition says it is “in the process of obtaining” NSF certification.

We also shared our results with the FDA and asked about its oversight of the protein supplement industry. A spokesperson says the agency monitors contaminants in protein powders and shakes through its toxic element compliance program, special FDA surveys, and through a cooperative agreement with the states for laboratory funding. 

“We will review the findings from Consumer Reports’ testing along with other data we have collected to better inform where to focus our testing efforts and enforcement activities,” the FDA spokesperson says. 

It’s important to put CR’s daily exposure limits for heavy metals into context, says Goldman, the Cambridge Health Alliance physician. In the chart above, one of the ways results are shown is as a percentage of CR’s level of concern for lead in one serving of the protein powder or shake.

This level is based on the California Prop 65 maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead—0.5 micrograms per day—which has a wide safety margin built in. “We use this value because it is the most protective lead standard available,” says Sana Mujahid, PhD, who oversees food safety research and testing at CR. “There is no safe amount of lead, and we think your exposure to it in the food and water supply should be as low as possible.”

Jeff Ventura, vice president of communications for the dietary supplement trade group, Council for Responsible Nutrition, challenged CR’s level of concern for lead, saying it “creates a misleading impression of risk.” (Three of the products CR tested contained ingredients made by the trade group’s member companies.) “A finding that a product exceeds CR’s self-imposed threshold is not the same as exceeding a government safety limit, nor is it evidence of any safety risk to consumers,” Ventura says.

There are no broad federal guidelines setting dietary lead limits for the adult population. The FDA has set “interim reference levels”—these are estimates, not regulations or action levels, designed to protect against lead toxicity—for children and women of childbearing age. Those levels are currently 2.2 micrograms and 8.8 micrograms per day, respectively. An FDA spokesperson told CR there is sufficient evidence that the 8.8 micrograms per day benchmark should be applied to all adults.

The average American adult is exposed to up to 5.3 micrograms of lead each day through their diet, according to a 2019 analysis published by scientists at the FDA. For comparison, one serving of Naked Nutrition’s Mass Gainer contained 7.7 micrograms of lead, and a single serving of Huel’s Black Edition contained 6.3 micrograms. That means someone taking a single serving of one of these supplements daily is likely exceeding the FDA’s interim reference level for dietary lead. 

One of the main reasons people turn to supplements is the belief that their diet falls short on protein—a concern that many experts say is overblown. Americans need much less protein than they think, says Nicholas Burd, PhD, a professor of health and kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has studied protein extensively. “I’m constantly trying to pull protein out of people’s diets.” 

The average healthy adult needs roughly 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (0.36 grams per pound), according to federal nutrition guidelines. For a 170-pound adult, that breaks down to about 61 grams of protein, which can be achieved by eating a cup of plain Greek yogurt and 3.5 ounces of chicken breast (or 5 ounces of tempeh).

That level is only a starting point, says Burd, who adds that experts advise certain groups, like pregnant people and specific types of athletes, to consume more. Older adults, for instance, should aim for about 1 to 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (0.45 to 0.59 grams per pound) to offset the decline in muscle mass associated with aging. 

Even so, studies have found that most people, even vegans, are capable of getting more than enough protein through their diet alone. The latest federal survey of U.S. eating habits found that Americans of all age groups exceed the recommended dietary allowances for protein (PDF), with men clocking in at over 155 percent of the recommendations and women at over 135 percent. But many people still worry they are deficient, Burd says.

Americans have been hooked on the idea of maximizing protein since the early 2000s, when a study suggested a connection between increased protein consumption and weight loss, says Hannah Cutting-Jones, PhD, a food historian and assistant professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. But unlike other diet trends, protein mania has yet to wane.

In recent years, prominent health and fitness influencers like Peter Attia, MD, and Gabrielle Lyon, DO, have helped popularize the notion that the federal recommendations are woefully inadequate. In viral social media posts and during appearances on popular podcasts, they’ve argued that the amount of protein needed to promote overall muscle health is likely double—or more—what the guidelines suggest.

But those arguments aren’t supported by the latest research. A 2020 meta-analysis found that the intake levels set forth in the federal guidelines are enough to meet the needs of the average adult and that eating more had beneficial effects on lean mass only in very specific circumstances. (For instance, eating extra protein helped people who were restricting calories preserve more lean mass, but only when combined with resistance training.) Notably, it also found that among people neither dieting nor resistance training, chronically overconsuming protein had little effect. 

Lyon said in a statement emailed to CR that the meta-analysis was flawed because the “high protein” groups studied were not eating enough protein and the median length of the 18 trials studied was only 12 weeks. “The overarching point I’ve helped popularize, that the current protein [Recommended Daily Allowance] is too low, comes down to the difference between avoiding deficiency and optimizing health,” Lyon said. Attia did not respond to a request for comment. 

Regardless, Burd’s message hasn’t sunk in for most people. “I’m fighting a losing battle,” he says, adding that he frequently finds himself in arguments with laypeople about whether they’re getting enough protein. “I get so much pushback.”

Although there were some exceptions, products made with plant-based proteins generally tested higher for lead than those using meat- or dairy-based sources. All the plant-based powders CR tested relied on pea protein as a main ingredient. Though soy remains among the most popular plant-based protein in terms of total crop volume, pea protein has emerged as a popular alternative due to its flavor profile and comparatively low allergenicity, says Priera Panescu Scott, PhD, a senior scientist at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit focused on protein alternatives.

CR’s tests did not determine whether the pea protein itself was a noteworthy source of additional contamination, or if the difference between the groups was due to the natural tendency of all plants to take up lead.

Certain foods have unavoidable trace amounts of lead in them because of the environments where crops are grown and animals are raised. Heavy metal contamination can come from natural sources—because lead naturally exists in the earth’s crust—or from human activity like industrial pollution, wastewater irrigation, or road dust. Plants are particularly susceptible because they naturally absorb whatever nutrients or contaminants are in the soil, water, and air around them. For animal-based products like milk, the primary sources of heavy metal contamination in the cow’s environment include the feed, water, and soil, Akinleye says.

Extracting concentrated protein from plants is a complex, highly mechanized process. With every additional step, there’s a chance of introducing contaminants such as lead, says Goldman, the Cambridge Health Alliance physician who has studied lead exposure.

Lead could enter pea protein at the manufacturing plant, when the dried peas are dehulled and ground into flour, depending on the type of machines and metals used, says Goldman. It could also be introduced during the process where the flour is mixed with water to separate the protein from the starch and fiber, if the water wasn’t tested for contamination. The final step of the process, where the protein is coagulated with food-grade acid, neutralized, and spray-dried into the powder found in many foods and supplements, also offers opportunities for contamination, depending on the materials used.

Many companies don’t disclose where they source their pea protein, making it hard to know exactly where the products we tested came from. Historically, though, much of the pea protein used in U.S. food production is imported from China, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. That’s notable because while the FDA has the authority to audit foreign supplement makers, it rarely does.

Protein powders and shakes, like all dietary supplements, fall into something of a regulatory gray area.

There is no federal limit specifying the amount of lead allowed in protein powders. And while the FDA requires that manufacturers keep their products free of harmful contaminants, it largely leaves it up to companies to decide what counts as harmful and test their own products for compliance.

Before 1994, manufacturers had to prove herbal products were safe before selling them. That changed after Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. The law sharply limited the FDA’s authority, leaving supplements far less regulated than drugs.

Today, supplements are “presumed safe unless found otherwise,” says Cohen at Harvard Medical School, and most products face scrutiny only after reaching the market—meaning unsafe or contaminated supplements can reach consumers before problems are caught.

Limit exposure. If you are going to use protein supplements, you can reduce your lead exposure by limiting the number of servings you have each week and avoiding products with the highest amounts of lead in our tests, says Akinleye, the CR food safety researcher who oversaw this testing project. “We advise against daily use for most protein powders, since many have high levels of heavy metals and none are necessary to hit your protein goals.”

Avoid products with Prop 65 warnings on the label, and use CR’s chart above as a guide to seek out those with low levels of heavy metals. This is especially important for children and people who are pregnant or could become so. 

Scrutinize your shakes. Before making a purchase, check to see if test results for the product are available online. But be warned: Few companies make their heavy metal testing results public. Of the brands we tested, only Momentous says it publishes them on its website, and two additional companies—KOS and Equip Foods—say they will provide results to customers upon request. If test results are unavailable, consider opting for products that use dairy-based sources of protein rather than plant-based. Better yet, make your own shakes by swapping out the powders for high-protein foods like peanut butter or Greek yogurt.

Don’t succumb to protein mania. Most people don’t need supplements or protein-fortified foods to meet their protein goals. You can get a more individualized estimate of your protein needs by using the Department of Agriculture’s calculator, but the general guidelines are as follows: Most adults need 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. For some people, like older adults, pregnant people, and serious athletes, it can be useful to shoot for more, but there are no official recommendations.

Choose whole foods over protein-fortified products. Avoid defaulting to the protein-added versions of everyday products, like bread and pasta. Instead, opt for whole foods that are naturally high in protein, like beans, lentils, tofu, eggs, dairy, fish, poultry, and lean meats, says Burd, the University of Illinois professor. “Protein mania is rampant,” he continued. “If you [have] a healthy eating pattern, there’s certainly no reason you need an isolated food protein.”