Chicken and duck meat are the cleanest types of meat from a heavy metals point of view.
Posted by The Health Ranger Report, Checked
- Sources
- 3 contradict2 support1 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 50%
The Health Ranger ReportOct 22, 2026
The sources only partly support the claim. Several studies find chicken among the lower-metal meats, especially for Cd and Cu, but they also find chicken and duck with high Cd, Hg, As or Pb, and duck often ranks worst for lead.
Our two reads of who says this, and how, disagree, so it counts as the post's own claim.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… I say support local ranchers that have, you know, ethical, clean practices. I wouldn't necessarily trust, like, conventional factory meat from the grocery store. You know, that's your call. We have done a lot of heavy metals testing on meat products, by the way, and if you want to know which type of meat is the cleanest from a heavy metals point of view, it's chicken. It's chicken. Well, it's chicken and duck, I should say. The dirtiest is fish with mercury in it, and then beef sometimes has lead issues, believe it or not. Not always, just depends on the farmer, depends on the ranch. Pork sometimes has issues. …
The Health Ranger Report · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Contradicts. A literature review of toxic metals in meat reports that the highest mean Cd and Hg levels were found in duck and chicken, and that the highest As was in chicken, so chicken and duck are not uniformly the cleanest.[4]
Contradicts. A Taiwan market study found lead concentrations were higher in duck than in other meats and arsenic higher in chicken and pork, while a Thai duck study reported high Pb and Cd levels.[2][5]
Supports. A review of poultry heavy metals reports that chicken muscle meat contained the lowest levels of these metals among the tissues measured, and a Colombian market survey found chicken with the lowest Cd and Cu concentrations among fish, beef, pork and chicken.[3][6]
Context. The Snopes collection on food contamination rumors does not directly address heavy metal rankings of meat types, so it provides no evidence either way.[1]
Sources
6 sources: 1 fact-checker, 2 primary, 3 not rated
- 1Are you concerned about contaminated food? Here are 15 rumors ...snopes.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 2Distribution and safety assessment of heavy metals in fresh ...pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · primary source · cited for: contradicts
- 3Heavy metal toxicity in poultry: a comprehensive reviewncbi.nlm.nih.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
- 4[PDF] A Literature Review on the Levels of Toxic Metals/Metalloids in Meat ...qeios.com · not rated · cited for: contradicts
- 5Trace elements and heavy metals in poultry and livestock ...tandfonline.com · not rated · cited for: contradicts
- 6valoración y cuantificación de metales pesados en carne ...ojs.unipamplona.edu.co · not rated · cited for: supports
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post