When you create a product for consumers, you have to think a lot. You want something of high quality that will bring joy, comfort or solutions to people’s lives. You want your product to be safe for everyone who comes across it, and ideally not too expensive or difficult to make, so you can ensure you’re meeting demand.
One thing that is incredibly harmful to human health is metals in consumer products. The following will explore in detail why the use of metal detectors for consumer products is so important to product safety.
Metal contaminants
First of all, you may be wondering why metal contamination is a concern of people. It turns out that metals – especially heavy metals – can have serious health consequences. First, heavy metal poisoning is a real thing. This happens when the body has too much heavy metal in the system.
Some of the most common metal poisoning situations come from mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. High concentrations of these substances can enter your body through food, polluted air, polluted water, medicines, uncoated food containers, lead-based paint and industrial exposure.
Symptoms of this type of poisoning are weakness, diarrhea, nausea, chills, abdominal pain, tingling in the hands or feet, vomiting and difficulty breathing. If you are pregnant, metal poisoning can lead to miscarriage or premature birth. Children who have experienced heavy metal poisoning sometimes have weak or unusually formed bones.
Of course, there are other metals that the body can tolerate in the right amounts. Things like zinc, copper and iron are essential for health. But, at the same time, too much in your body can lead to toxic reactions. This means that manufacturers must also be aware of how many ‘safe’ minerals are in their products.
Beyond these initial cases of severe poisoning, it is still important to learn about heavy metals and the body. This is because non-toxic amounts of metals can build up over a lifetime in the body, increasing the risk of all kinds of chronic diseases and struggles.
Heavy metals can alter protein function, enzyme activity and cell membranes; they can also cause DNA damage. They’re also really hard to get out of the body, which means they can stay inside you, building up for years – even a lifetime. It’s also worth noting that, because of this, even if the particular thing you’re eating doesn’t have more of a given heavy metal than is allowed, you can still get these high levels of metals if you eat more things with low numbers of toxic metals.
Metal detectors
You might think of metal detectors as the handheld devices people use to comb the beach for buried treasure. This is just one type of metal detector. There are a ton of different types and styles depending on what metals you’re looking for and what you’re looking for.
There are industrial metal detectors for massive products, laser metal detectors, human-sized metal detectors for event and site security and more. If you don’t want to have metal in something you create, there will be a metal detector option to suit your particular creation.
Legal standards
Depending on where you create products, you may also have legal standards that you need to meet and be able to prove that you meet them. If you’re not sure what your legal obligations are, pause everything and find out. Don’t just research this information online, talk to an attorney who advises people in your industry.
Compliance is a serious concern for any business owner because mistakes can lead to exorbitant fines, being sued for a ton of money, losing your legal right to practice in the industry, or even jail time if your mistake has hurt or could have hurt a person. Negligence is a serious offense almost everywhere.
There may even be equipment requirements you need to meet. Take the time to learn about the different options that meet these standards and understand the needs of your industry and production. For example, the Standard metal detectors of the IMD series are robust and designed to detect metals in snacks, frozen foods, bakery products and confectionery. There are other options suitable for other products.
Environmental Considerations
It is vital that you understand that there are more heavy metals in our environment touching the things we eat and drink than in past generations. In particular, food that comes from the ocean has much higher amounts of heavy metals because the ocean has more of them. It’s gotten so bad that pregnant women are encouraged to keep their fish intake to a minimum because levels of standard foods like tuna and salmon are so high they can harm a fetus.
In general, larger fish contain more mercury or other toxins than smaller fish because the small fish ingest the mercury and then the larger fish eat a whole bunch of smaller fish. Rice, especially brown rice, is also known to be dangerous because it often contains high levels of arsenic. Recently, chocolate has also been found to have high levels of dangerous metals.
Heavy Metal Detox
It is normal that this information scared you a little. It is scary to learn that some everyday foods are very toxic. The good news is that there are detoxification steps can be taken to reduce the number of heavy metals in your body. Specifically, you can focus on eating: probiotic-rich foods (fermented foods), cilantro, tomatoes, garlic, green tea, wild blueberries, curry, lemon water, Atlantic dulse, spirulina, barley grass juice, powder, and chlorella.
The above information should have brought to your attention the importance of metal detection for product safety. Heavy metals can be absorbed through air, food, water and even touch. This means that you also need to be careful how you handle products that are found to contain metals.
As part of your metal detection process, you should include clear procedures for disposal of contaminated products that are mindful of the health of your employees and the environment in your area. You need to be extra careful about any metals that you find end up in the water system. If you suspect that you or someone you know has experienced an unsafe amount of heavy metals, contact your doctor immediately.
