Kitchen

[Kachina624]

The brands mentioned were "off brands" with strange names.  My old standby, Mccormick was not mentioned.  Buy your cinnamon from a reliable source.  Check the CDC for lists.

[Shelbelle]

I only use Ceylon Cinnamon, usually buy Frontier brand. Other cinnamon made from cassia bark contains coumarin which can be damaging to your health. 

[loriqvc]

The full report on this topic can be found by Googling "Consumer Reports cinnamon" (no quotation marks needed). Here's a summary:

Stop using these brands
Badia cinnamon powder
BaiLiFeng five spice powder
Bowl & Basket ground cinnamon
Deep cinnamon Powder
EGN cinnamon powder
Mimi's Products ground cinnamon
Paras cinnamon powder
Rani Brand ground cinnamon
Spicy King five spices powder
Three Rivers cinnamon stick powder
Yu Yee Brand five spice powder
Zara Foods cinnamon powder

"If you have one of those products, we think you should throw it away," microbiologist James Rogers, director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports said of the 12 brands with the highest lead levels. "Even small amounts of lead pose a risk because, over time, it can accumulate in the body and remain there for years, seriously harming health," he added.

Brands that are OK to use
Abido Spices 7 mixes
Good & Gather ground cinnamon
Great Value ground cinnamon
Happy Belly ground cinnamon
Kirkland Signature organic Saigon cinnamon
McCormick cinnamon
Morton Bassett San Francisco ground cinnamon
Natural Plus Green five spices powder
Penzeys Ceylon cinnamon
Penzeys ground cinnamon
Penzeys Vietnamese Cinnamon
Shan garam masala powder
Simply Organic cinnamon
Swad garam masala powder
The Spice Lab organic ground cinnamon
Trader Joe's organic ground cinnamon
Wei-Chuan five spice powder
Ziyad Brand premium seven spice blend

Good options
Half a dozen of the products tested as low-risk and "demonstrate that it's possible to produce cinnamon with no lead or extremely low levels," said Rogers. The brands qualifying as good options are:

365 Whole Foods Market Ground Cinnamon
365 Whole Foods Market Organic Ground Cinnamon
Loisa Organic Cinnamon
Morton & Bassett San Francisco Organic Ground Cinnamon
Sadaf Cinnamon Powder
Sadaf Seven Spice Blend

[Estellee]

Thankfully I have McCormick they say is safe.

[Nightowlz]

My sister just sent me a text about the lead in cinnamon.

At least the 3 different ones from Penzey's are on your Ok list.

There's lead in the ground so it's in the food you eat. It's in the water we drink.

It's pretty bad there are no Regulatory limits set so they cannot tell them to recall it. It's the companies decision to recall or not & that doesn't always happen???

What about the cinnamon people take for diabetes? I read about a water soluble cinnamon called Cinnulin PF several years ago.

[Bookplate]

It was also recently identified in some dark chocolates.  Which has not changed my eating habits one bit of course.

[shoesnbags]

@Kachina624 

Yes! I subscribe to ConsumerLab and they have been talking about this for a couple of years now.  In testing many brands of cinnamon they looked at lead and at coumarin, which @Shelbelle mentioned.  Their report won't let me copy and paste because it's copyrighted, but the top three recommended are Whole Foods 365 ground cinnamon, McCormick Ground Cinnamon, and FGO Organic Ceylon Cinnamon Powder.  After reading this I switched from the organic cinnamon I was using to McCormick.

[Goodie2shoes]

Thanks for this post and the brands because I'm a big Cinnamon user, I use alot of cinnamon in my walnut recipe and I eat  a lot of Cinnamon Walnuts each day. Cinnamon helps with keeping blood sugars under control. Thankfully I only use McCormick brand.

[Julie_23]

Thank you for posting about this and the various brands! 

@shoesnbags :  Did they happen to mention anything about the spice turmeric and its safety/brands?

[shoesnbags]

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@Julie_23 wrote:

Thank you for posting about this and the various brands! 

@shoesnbags :  Did they happen to mention anything about the spice turmeric and its safety/brands?

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@Julie_23 I'm cooking right now but will look it up later and let you know.  I'm think they did an article on turmeric.