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What You Should Know About the PFAS in Your Food
When asked about the relative risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure, Graham Peaslee recalls the story of an Australian firefighter who was being studied by a colleague.
“She got funding to do a blood study of 700 firefighters in South Australia,” Peaslee, an Emeritus professor at the University of Notre Dame, says.
“She measured the PFAS in all of them, and she found that they were elevated relative to the general population, about 10-12 parts per billion instead of 5 [parts per billion]. And it was expected, because they [the firefighters] use AFFF [aqueous film-forming foam].”
“This was a residential fire station,” Peaslee explains, “where they lived for a week on base. [The fire department] made all the suburban fire stations have a professional gym, and they got a professional kitchen installed and lessons on how to cook.
This one firefighter with 1,700 parts per billion in his blood was eating five organic egg yolks a day as part of his protein-building diet.
Well, egg yolks are highly bio-accumulative. He got five fresh organic eggs a day because the station kept a bunch of chickens out the back. And they fed them the fresh organic wheat that they grew right in the backyard, which happened to be around an old test pit where they tested the foam…”
“So, the foam from 20 years ago, which he had never touched, was leaching into the wheat, which was being fed to the chickens, which accumulated [the PFAS] in their eggs. This guy ate five eggs a day and his PFAS was through the roof!”
Food Processing Facts: Big Food Defends UPFs With New Website
The Consumer Brands Association has launched a new website that aims to combat “consumer confusion” around ultra-processed foods — but context is crucial.
With ultra-processed foods (UPFs) taking center stage in today’s dietary discourse, there’s a lot of information — and plenty of it misleading — around the health impacts of these products.
Today, in the U.S., UPFs make up 73% of the food supply and contribute to 60% of national calorie consumption. But many have begun rallying against these foods, with numerous studies linking them with ill health effects.
However, nutritionists themselves are at loggerheads about the correlation between food processing and nutrition — for many, one has nothing to do with the other.
Who this hurts most is the world’s largest food companies, whose products line supermarkets and are the definition of UPFs.
This is why the Consumer Brands Association — an industry group whose members include the who’s who of Big Food — has launched a new website called Food Processing Facts.
Boar’s Head Recall Exposes Gaps in Food Safety Standards
With food contamination becoming more prevalent amid changing diets and production methods, food hygiene experts are blaming a broken government food inspection system and recommending tighter food safety standards, The Food Institute has learned.
The latest food contamination outbreak involved listeria at the Boar’s Head plant in southern Virginia. Some seven million pounds of meat involving 71 products were recalled July 26 after it was discovered a sample of liverwurst had tested positive for L. monocytogenes, the bacteria that causes listeriosis.
Dozens of people have been sickened and nine deaths have been reported so far. Multiple government inspections of the plant in Jarratt, Virginia, over a period of months turned up dirty machinery, meat buildup on walls, puddles of blood on floors, leaking pipes and clogged drains, among other issues.
Other forms of filth included insects, mold and fungus.
Mitzi Baum, CEO of Stop Foodborne Illness, questioned why the Boar’s Head plant was allowed to remain operating in light of its compliance issues.
“Clearly, the federal inspection system is broken,” Baum said.
European Food Businesses Call for Rigorous Labeling of New GMOs
Dr István Nagy, current European Union (EU) Council President for Agriculture and Fisheries, met today with representatives of a business initiative to submit an open letter, “Food Industry for Freedom of Choice.”
A total of 376 businesses from the food industry in 16 EU Member States have signed the letter.
Among them are renowned industry giants as the REWE Group, the third largest food retailer in the EU; the leading retailer in Austria, SPAR Austria; Europe’s largest drugstore chain dm-drogerie markt; and the world’s largest organic supermarket chain Biocoop.
Across Europe, companies see their entrepreneurial freedom threatened by the EU Commission’s plans to deregulate so-called new genomic techniques, or NGTs, or new GM techniques.
They are therefore appealing to the EU Agriculture Council to stand up for transparency, freedom of choice, and fair competitive conditions along the entire value chain.
