India: Ethylene oxide food alerts are notified of more products and origins

India

Published Aug 4, 2021

Tridge summary

At the end of last year, the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) reported the presence of very high levels of ethylene oxide in certain batches of sesame seeds originating in or from India, which had been introduced into the European Union. These levels were more than 1,000 times higher than the established maximum residue limit (MRL) of 0.05 mg / kg of ethylene oxide. The Commission's response was not long and controls were increased.

Original content

So far this year, more than 165 notifications have been made to RASFF due to the presence of this compound in different products, and in recent weeks ethylene oxide has been detected in ice creams that have had to be withdrawn from the market. For AINIA's head of food safety, Roberto Ortuño, “ethylene oxide is classified as a category 1B mutagen, a category 1B carcinogen and a category 1B toxic for reproduction, therefore it poses a health risk ”. Likewise, the use of ethylene oxide as an active substance in plant protection products in the EU is not approved, but it is used in third countries. Positive samples in other products and provenances In addition to existing in numerous processed products that contain or may contain sesame, such as seed mixes, cereal bars, tofu, cookies, seed bread, pastries, sesame oil, tahini or hummus, positive samples of ethylene oxide have begun to appear in many other products such as ginger. , onion powder, coffee, coriander, guar gum, durum ...

Source: Cuaderno Agrario