I don't think you need to worry buying it from a store that's imported it properly - the article says it was found in the US in Bangladeshi communities where it had been brought back to the US in their suitcases.
The difference could be due to sun-drying (I assume?) on your family's farm vs. industrial scale freeze/spray drying, for example. Or some (non-lead, non-colouring) additive that prevents it oxidising and dulling over time perhaps. I think argon is often used (rather than air) in packaging for that purpose.
You may (or not) be surprised that there's actually no general testing for heavy metals in US foods, even in categories seriously affected by them—neither by the FDA, nor the private sector.
> "Currently, about two dozen spice companies from 11 countries are subject to import alerts for lead contamination, which signal to regulators that they can detain those products. But that represents a fraction of the herbs and spices shipped to the U.S. In addition, the limited testing the FDA has done on spices has been focused on harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, not heavy metals, Ronholm says."
> "The lack of regulation leaves much of the monitoring of heavy metal levels to companies. [Consumer Reports] contacted all the ones with products in our tests to see how they limited heavy metals."
> "Of the companies that replied to our questions—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Costco, Bolner’s Fiesta, Gebhardt, Litehouse, McCormick, Roland Foods, Spice Islands, Target, and Whole Foods—a few said they require their suppliers to have a program for controlling or testing for heavy metals. But only three—Al Wadi Al Akhdar, Bolner’s Fiesta, and McCormick—specifically said they test products in their manufacturing plants for heavy metals."
With the exception of one brand I hadn't heard of (La Flor), every turmeric tested was either safe or in the "some concern" category.
CR does a disservice by not sharing their test levels, but I'm willing to bet my own health that "some concern" is multiple orders of magnitude less lead than what this npr article is about.
But I wasn't suggesting it would be 'caught at the US border' so much as that if you're buying from big industrial process exporting around the world it's just so much less likely to be an issue to begin with. Article is about relatively small time farmers (processing and perhaps direct selling it themselves) trying to save their failed crop and their livelihood.
It very much is true: I am 'I' and that is what I [don't] 'think'.
Statements I didn't make like 'it has never ever been detected at any level in ...' may well not be true, but on the scale of risks to worry about I do not think this ranks.
For other readers: OJFord doesn't know what s/he's talking about and you should look up tests for the specific brands for the specific spices you're looking to buy, especially if you have children and/or you use spices liberally in your food. The US does not systematically test spices for contamination like this and it does show up in high levels in the American spice supply. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there are brands that are across-the-board good on contamination.
If a company doesn’t explicitly state their supply chain controls in situations like this, I’m going to assume they’re possibly inadequate. This is the Amazon era, where things like knowing where what you’re selling came from is considered too much effort.
The difference could be due to sun-drying (I assume?) on your family's farm vs. industrial scale freeze/spray drying, for example. Or some (non-lead, non-colouring) additive that prevents it oxidising and dulling over time perhaps. I think argon is often used (rather than air) in packaging for that purpose.