EU to set law limiting cancer-related substance Acrylamide in food

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The European Food Safety has found that acrylamide may increase the risk of developing cancer among consumers of all ages. This led them to recommend that consumers limit their exposure to the substance to avoid developing the illness.

According to a conversation on Reddit, the European Commission has come up with a plan to legally limit a substance that is naturally found in food which they found to be associated with cancer a few days after the industry's campaigned.

Campaigners say that leaked documents showed the legislative retreat show "undue influence" by the food industry over EU law-making and a "permanent scandal", although the issue is complex.

Acrylamide is a dangerous substance which can be commonly found in the browned and burned parts of common starchy foods that have been fried, roasted or oven-cooked at temperatures higher than 248C (478F). These foods include, crisps, potato chips, breakfast cereals and instant coffee all contain high levels of the substance, as do baby foods, biscuits, and rusks.

Experts are still trying to measure the health risk the substance can cause, but the US Environmental Protection Agency claims that acrylamide is an "extremely hazardous substance."

Last year, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) discovered that acrylamide can "potentially raise the risk of developing cancer in consumers of all ages" and recommended not to have as much exposure as possible, since safety limit has not yet been decided.  

Acrylamide levels can be lowered down by using different ingredients and additives, or by simply changing storage methods and the temperature food is cooked. However, this could still affect several features of the food industry such as practice, costs, and product tastes. It was also revealed that EU law in that area is limited to voluntary codes of practice at the moment.

As reported by The Guardian, an EU regulation this year had been expected to solidify these codes up into stronger public health protections and a draft version produced in late June has already taken steps in that direction.

According to the report, it called on the food industry to "provide evidence of regular testing of their products to ensure that the application of the code of practice is effective in keeping acrylamide levels as low as reasonably achievable and at least below the indicative levels referred to in Annex 3."

The annex set standards for acrylamide levels in a range of foods, including crisps, crackers, soft bread, breakfast cereals, biscuits, wafers, gingerbread, coffees, biscuits and baby foods. However, the paper was shared with an industry association, Food Drink Europe.

It  immediately filed a complaint with the commission in a letter, stating, "the terminology 'at least below the indicative value' could be interpreted as meaning that the indicative values are maximum limits."

Meanwhile, days after the complaints, the offending reference had been taken out from a second draft of the law, which was then sent out for broader public consultation. Martin Pigeon, a spokesman for Corporate Europe Observatory, said that the documents showed the European commission's original good intentions had been "annihilated" by industry pressure.

"This is yet another case of the meaningless regulations obtained when giving industry too much say about its own regulation," he said.