Food System

Acrylamide, unresolved dangers

April 15, 2019

Regulation (EU) no. 2017/2158, bearing ‘guiding values’ and measures to reduce acrylamide in food, has completed its first year of implementation. (1) The situation appears to have improved overall but the serious health hazards to infants and children, including on some products of

Big Food.

, remain unresolved.

Table of Contents

Acrylamide, red alert

Acrylamide is a process contaminant formed in cooking at temperatures (>120 ‘C) such as frying, baking and grilling. (2) The substance is formed as part of the so-called ‘Maillard’s reaction‘, the interaction between sugars (reductants) and amino acids (asparagine) that explains, among other things, the formation of brownish compounds typical of toasting.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, WHO) began considering the substance around the early 1990s, classifying it as toxic and a probable carcinogen. JECFA, the ‘Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives,’ has therefore initiated a process of monitoring and risk analysis. Detecting its presence in some materials used in industrial processes (e.g., adhesives, plastics and packaging) and in cooked foods. As well as evaluating its genotoxicity and neurotoxicity.

Levels of acrylamide found in food products in Europe, following three successive monitoring campaigns, prompted the European Commission to refer theEuropean Food Safety Authority (Efsa) for an assessment. (3) The European Food Safety Authority, in its scientific opinion 4.6.15, associated the consumption of acrylamide-containing foods with the risk of developing cancer in consumers of all age groups. Highlighting the peculiar vulnerability of children due to the greater impact of the toxic substance on their reduced body mass. Red alert, per toxicologists.

Children’s health vs. interests of
Big Food
, Brussels’ priorities

‘
Experts from the Scientific Panel
EFSA on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) have reiterated their previous assessments that acrylamide in food may increase the risk of developing cancer in consumers for all age groups‘ (Efsa, 4.6.15)

The tolerable daily dose

(

Acceptable Daily Intake

, ADI) cannot be defined because it is a genotoxic substance, that is, capable of damaging DNA at any level of exposure. Like the process contaminants of refined vegetable oils, which palm oil contains in quantities 6-10 times higher than the others (according to Efsa opinion 3.5.16).

The serious risks for public health were overlooked by the Commission in both cases. In the case of palm oil, the outgoing commissioner wilfully omitted any risk management measures. In the case of acrylamide, The European Commission, by reg. EU 2158/2017, defined reference ‘guideline values’ to which manufacturers should adhere. However, without defining prescriptive limits or bans on the marketing of risky foods. Nor prescribe penalties and seizures.

Infants and children

are the categories most at risk. In the case of palm oil

As in that of acrylamide. The European Commission – according to rumors gathered by the NGO ‘

Safe Food Advocacy Europe

‘

– would like to raise the threshold of acrylamide allowed on products intended for children. 40 to 50 µg/kg, serving

Big Food

Instead of the health of the youngest children.

Acrylamide in foods, foods at risk. Survey by AltroConsumo

Foods at risk for

acrylamide are those rich in starches, which contain sugars and the amino acid asparagine, fried or cooked at high temperatures until they take on the typical toasted appearance. Potatoes and other vegetables

, bread, pizza,

crackers

, cookies and other baked goods. The choice of ingredients, the mode of storage and processing of raw materials, semi-finished and finished products-as well as the characteristics (time, mode and temperature) of the thermal process-are the factors that detect in the formation of acrylamide in food.

Altroconsumo

subjected 69 food products sold in Italy to analysis as part of a survey of 532 references conducted by consumer associations that are members of

Euroconsumers

. (4) Analytical results showed that the threshold values stipulated in Reg. EU 2017/2158 on three products, the homogenized Mellin (group Danone) of plum with apple as well as chips (chips) of Crik-Crok e Cipster (group Mondelez). Marks, the latter two, whom we in turn have already denounced for

claims

and outlaw labels

, as well as poor nutritional profiles. Very high contamination values, almost double that of French fries, have also been found on the chips of vegetables to brands Tyrrell’s (veg crisps, 100 g) and Kettle Chips (veg chips sea salt, 100 g).

Hazardous foods, genotoxic and carcinogenic, aimed at early childhood in the Mellin case and at a youth audience consisting also of children in the other cases, thus result in free sale. This expresses the very serious irresponsibility Of the operators involved, on the one hand. And the equally serious irresponsibility of the Food and Nutrition Hygiene Services (SIAN) of the relevant ASLs. All of whom should have devoted peculiar attention to the application of the regulation such risk precisely on the foods most at risk–starting with potato products–and those aimed at children. Monitoring, sampling, analysis, corrective action. Who has seen them?

Acrylamide, other sources of exposure. Smoking and electronic cigarettes

Smoking and e-cigarettes are, in turn, sources of exposure to the toxic substance. The theory that ‘vaping’ would help smokers limit the damage caused by smoking has been debunked by the ‘University of California – San Francisco‘ (UCSF). (5) The randomized clinical trial involved 101 teenagers, mean age 16.4 years. 67 users of electronic cigarettes only, 16 of electronic and conventional cigarettes, 20 non-smokers nor ‘vapers’.

‘
Teenagers
need to be warned, the vapor produced by e-cigarettes is not harmless water vapor, but actually contains some of the same toxic chemicals found in smoking traditional cigarettes. Teenagers should inhale air, not products that contain toxins‘ (Prof. Marc L. Rubinstein, UCSF, Department of Pediatrics).

Urine analysis revealed the presence of toxic carcinogens even in teenagers who were ‘just’ ‘vaping.’ Whose organisms contained benzene, ethylene oxide, acrylonitrile, acrolein, and acrylamide in amounts three times higher than kids who neither smoked nor ‘vaped.’

Dario Dongo and Ylenia Desireeè Patti Giammello

Notes

(1) See reg. EU 2017/2158, ‘establishing mitigation measures and reference levels the reduction of acrylamide in food‘

(2) See reg. EEC 315/93, ‘laying down Community procedures for contaminants in foodstuffs‘

(3) See European Commission Recommendations 2007/331/EC, 2010/307/EU, 2013/647/EU.

(4) See AltroConsumo, Inquiries 334, March 2019. See also the position expressed by AltroConsumo following the survey, on https://www.altroconsumo.it/-/media/altroconsumo/pdf/acrilammide/acrilammide%20lettera.pdf?rev=b2af7ece-72f5-484f-99e3-1e0fc08dd69f&la=it-it

(5) Mark L. Rubinstein, Kevin Delucchi, Neal L. Benowitz, Danielle E. Ramo (2018). ‘Adolescent Exposure to Toxic Volatile Organic Chemicals From E-Cigarettes‘. Pediatrics, April 2018;141;

DOI: 10.1542/peds.2017-3557 (

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/4/e20173557

)