Why We Chose It
The Bonham Conclusion
We chose Jovial Organic Einkorn All-Purpose Flour because it is the cleanest wheat flour identified by independent third-party laboratory testing — and because the grain itself, einkorn, is fundamentally different from the modern wheat that fills most flour bags sold in the United States.
In June 2024, Lead Safe Mama — one of the most rigorous independent consumer goods testing organizations in the country — tested Jovial Organic Einkorn All-Purpose Flour and reported non-detect results for all four heavy metals they test for: lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic. It was the first flour in their entire testing program to achieve that result. In December 2025, a retest showed trace levels of lead and cadmium just above the 5 ppb detection threshold — very low, but detectable.
We are being fully transparent about both results. The 2025 trace detection is why we score Jovial's heavy metals honestly rather than with a perfect score. But when we compare those results to every other flour independently tested — including organic flours, gluten-free flours, and name-brand alternatives — Jovial remains the cleanest option available with published independent verification. That, combined with its Glyphosate Residue Free certification, Regenerative Organic Certification, Non-GMO verification, and the inherent purity of einkorn as an ancient unhybridized grain, is why it earned a Bonham Gold Label.
Who They Are
Jovial Foods — What Makes Them Different
Jovial Foods sources their einkorn exclusively from small organic family farms in Italy, where einkorn has been cultivated for centuries. Einkorn — Triticum monococcum — is the oldest cultivated wheat variety known to exist. It has never been hybridized, never been selectively bred for yield at the expense of nutritional integrity, and never been genetically modified in any form. It is, by definition, the most ancient and unaltered wheat available.
Modern commercial wheat, by contrast, has been extensively crossbred and modified since the mid-twentieth century Green Revolution to produce higher yields and better milling characteristics. This hybridization changed the gluten structure, starch composition, and overall nutritional profile of the grain in ways that many researchers believe contribute to the rise in gluten sensitivity and digestive issues in modern populations.
Jovial's einkorn is stone-milled — a slower, lower-heat process that preserves more of the grain's natural nutrition compared to high-speed roller milling used for conventional flour. The all-purpose flour is produced by stone-milling whole einkorn berries and then sifting to remove some — but not all — of the bran, retaining a portion of the germ and bran that is stripped entirely from conventional white flour.
On testing and transparency: Jovial certifies every harvest as Glyphosate Residue Free through The Detox Project — an independent ISO-accredited laboratory program. Their full certification listing is publicly available. However Jovial does not publish batch-level heavy metals testing results the way Vera Salt does. That distinction is reflected in their Verified score.
Claims & Certifications
What Jovial Claims — And What Each One Means
Independent Research & Lab Testing
What Outside Investigators Found — Including What Concerns Us
Lead Safe Mama — June 2024 test: Lead Safe Mama independently tested Jovial Organic Einkorn All-Purpose Flour and reported non-detect results for lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic — the first flour in their entire testing program to achieve this result. The full lab report is published at tamararubin.com — June 2024 Jovial Lab Report.
Lead Safe Mama — December 2025 retest: A follow-up retest published in December 2025 showed trace levels of lead and cadmium just above the 5 ppb detection threshold. As a result, Lead Safe Mama removed Jovial from their Lab-Tested Safer Choices List, which requires non-detect results on the most recent test. They explicitly noted that the levels are still very low and that Jovial could still be classified as cleaner than most other flour alternatives. The full retest report is at tamararubin.com — 2025 Jovial Retest.
The Detox Project independently certified Jovial Einkorn All-Purpose Flour as Glyphosate Residue Free. The certification is publicly listed on their database at detoxproject.org — Certified Products.
Lead Safe Mama Flour Comparison Chart — as of April 2025, Lead Safe Mama had tested 21 flour products. Of those, 52% tested positive for cadmium, 48% for lead, 33% for arsenic, and 0% for mercury. 87.5% of all wheat flours tested positive for cadmium. The full comparative chart is at Lead Safe Mama Flour Chart — April 2025. In that context, Jovial's trace detection in 2025 — while a legitimate concern — still represents one of the cleanest results in the entire category.
We review published lab results and independent investigator findings. We are not a laboratory and do not conduct our own testing. All primary sources are linked above for your own review. We updated Jovial's product evaluation in May 2026 to reflect the 2025 retest results.
The Broader Picture
Why Most Flour — Including Organic — Is More Contaminated Than You Think
Heavy metals in American wheat flour are a systemic problem that the independent testing data makes impossible to ignore. Lead Safe Mama's comparative testing found that 87.5% of organic wheat flours tested positive for heavy metals — cadmium in particular. The source is not primarily the grain itself but the industrial milling equipment used to process it. Cadmium plating is common on mechanical components, and high-speed roller mills used for commercial flour production introduce cadmium contamination at the point of processing. As Lead Safe Mama noted after testing King Arthur Organic Unbleached Bread Flour, Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour, and Costco's Organic Unbleached All-Purpose Flour — all American-produced wheat flours they have tested have shown positive for cadmium at concerning levels. The full comparative data is available at Lead Safe Mama's Flour Chart.
Glyphosate in conventional flour is the result of a widespread industry practice of using glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant on wheat crops. Glyphosate is sprayed directly on the standing grain 7 to 14 days before harvest to kill the plant uniformly and speed the drying process. This means the chemical is applied at maximum concentration directly to the food crop — not just to soil or earlier in the growing season. Independent testing by Mamavation and The Detox Project has confirmed detectable glyphosate residues in a significant proportion of conventional and non-certified wheat flours sold in the United States. The Environmental Working Group's analysis of EWG-commissioned testing found glyphosate in oat-based products at levels above their health benchmark for children — a concern that extends to wheat as well. More at EWG — Glyphosate in Food.
Bleaching and bromating agents — chlorine, benzoyl peroxide, and potassium bromate — are routinely added to conventional all-purpose flour to improve its appearance and handling characteristics. Potassium bromate is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and is banned in the EU, UK, Canada, Brazil, and China. It remains legal in the United States. Most consumers have no idea it may be in their flour. Jovial uses none of these.
"87.5% of organic wheat flours independently tested by Lead Safe Mama tested positive for heavy metals — primarily cadmium from industrial milling equipment. Jovial Einkorn remains the cleanest wheat flour in their dataset despite the 2025 trace detection."
