Balsamic: Leaded or Unleaded?

While shopping near Monterey Market with Lucky today, I happened upon this shelf:


Huh. Not sure how much there is in the balsamic; according to this SFGate article:

The suit, filed by the Environmental Law Foundation of Oakland, says lead can contaminate wine vinegar in the manufacturing process, and that the highest concentrations are found in Modena-style balsamic vinegar, a dark, rich vinegar favored by gourmet cooks.

The non-profit group wants retailers to require vinegar suppliers to provide tests proving that the products conform with a Proposition 65 safety level for lead. If not, the group wants consumer warnings on the products.

...

The foundation said it is suing the businesses based on an exposure level of more than 0.5 micrograms per day, a level set by Prop. 65 that includes a 1,000-fold safety margin. In other words, that level is 1,000 times lower than the level that would cause an observable effect in animals.

My understanding from other crap-I-read-on-the-Internet is that the lead is likely from the soils, as opposed to the manufacturing process. I'm wondering how much of a safety concern this really is--it is a pretty stringent exposure limit, and most people aren't funneling balsamic vinegar. Then again, the whole pregnant-woman-fetal-development thing is another ball of wax; yet another reason to be glad I was born male.

Even as somebody who is basically technically savvy, I can't say that I have ever evaluated my exposure levels of carcinogens in barbecue, or mercury from fish. I know that mercury can be bioaccumulated in fish to dangerous levels--there was a horrible slow poisoning of a town in Japan due to bioaccumulation of mercury in fish and shellfish from industrial releases. Incidentally, an excerpt from the Wikipedia article that made me say "whoah":

In February 1959 the mercury distribution in Minamata Bay was investigated. The results shocked the researchers involved. Large quantities of mercury were detected in fish, shellfish and sludge from the bay. The highest concentrations were centered around the Chisso factory wastewater canal in Hyakken Harbour and decreased going out to sea, clearly identifying the plant as the source of contamination. At the mouth of the wastewater canal a figure of 2 kg of mercury per ton of sediment was measured: a level which would be economically viable to mine (indeed, Chisso did later set up a subsidiary to reclaim and sell the mercury recovered from the sludge).

Thus, the grim joke I heard from my parents when I was a kid, about a thermometer factory getting shut down, because they found fish in the mercury.

But to be honest, I don't think I'm cutting back on either fish or barbecue anytime soon. Barbecue is just too PAH-licious to resist.

Addendum--aha, wait. It's actually grilling (casually known as barbecue in North America) that's the problem--high heat cooking over direct flame. In contrast, everyone should realize that barbecue is a low-temperature slow cooking process--don't mix up the two terms, please. So outdoor cookouts are more the problem, rather than barbecue. But anyway, I figure I'm not stopping on either.