“The European Union won’t take chicken from America. They won’t take lobsters from America. They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak. It’s unbelievable” Lutnick told FoxNews
“The European Union won’t take chicken from America. They won’t take lobsters from America. They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak. It’s unbelievable” Lutnick told FoxNews
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It must be nice to walk into a grocery store and buy things without having to read the ingredients of 10 different products to find the one with the fewest unnecessary shitty ingredients that are all banned in the EU. Can’t even buy an apple I don’t have to peel first because the skin is covered in fucking Apeel. Good for the EU rejecting our enshittified American garbage.
I had to look up Apeel, but I think it's a good thing actually:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeel_Sciences
Apeel Sciences is an American food technology company based in Goleta, California. Its edible coating product Apeel or Edipeel can make avocados, citrus and other types of fruit last twice as long as usual by using a tasteless edible coating, and reduces food loss and waste as well as reliance on single-use plastic packaging.
Edipeel is allowed for use on the following fruits in the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom: avocados, citrus fruit, mangoes, papayas, melons, bananas, pineapples, and pomegranates.
On their website they seem to rightfully point out that E471 (apparently a combo of E422 and E570) is already approved for consumption in the EU, so it doesn't make sense that they're limited to foods where we don't eat the peel. If it's safe and gets the plastic off the cucumbers, I'm for it.
e: Does anyone actually have a source for palladium being used in Edipeel's manufacture? I can't find one. Most of what I'm getting in these searches is that the plants they use to make E471 can contain heavy metals they absorb from their environment, and that the levels are low enough to be considered safe by US regulations. (No clue whether the limit is reasonable.)
The necessity of this substance is far from proven, and it uses a palladium as a catalyst which introduces potential heavy metal contamination. This is a venture capital-backed startup. We simply have stricter standards in the EU.
Do you have a source for their use of palladium? Wikipedia says it as well, but I can't find where that information is coming from. I'm mostly interested in what they're using it for, and whether other manufacturers of E471 are doing the same or using another method. Livsmedelsverket says it can be an animal product, but Apeel says they make theirs from plants. It's apparently also possible to make from palm oil, so that's neat. :|
So E471 is a whole class of hydrocarbons. I was using Wikipedia as a source too. Broadly speaking, catalysts containing heavy metals are often used for synthesizing organic molecules, regardless of the feedstock which can be deeived from plants or animals or whatever. Ideally, the catalyst does not get incorporated into the product, but generally quality control has to be enforced by regulations because corporations love cutting costs by glossing over safety standards.
In the EU only stuff that is proven safe can be used on edibles. Since that is apparently not the case yet, it is limited to stuff that you don't eat the peel of
No, the substances in question are already approved for edibles. I think the issue is that additives are not allowed on produce, because the Swedish Livsmedelsverket phrases it in a way that implies such to me.
"Får användas i nästan alla livsmedel som får innehålla tillsatser." "May be used in nearly all foods for which additives are allowed." I think it's reasonable that there's probably a regulation about not having additives in things people are assuming will be natural. I mean, how would you post allergy warnings on a peach?
I think the jury is still out on Apeel and I avoid directly consuming it due to reports of it containing small amounts of residual heavy metals that may build up in the body if you’re eating, say, an apple per day over the years. That may not be the case, and maybe it is in fact perfectly safe, but I appreciate that the EU is more cautious and it’s sprayed only on peels that aren’t typically eaten. The corporate-captured US government won’t do us the favor of being cautious like that and is perfectly happy to let companies feed us things that are later proven unsafe, so we have to take our own precautions here because we don’t have the benefit of experts taking these precautions on our behalf.
I hope I didn't seem like I disagree with the EU's caution, or that I was minimizing the seriousness of food issues in the US. I just hadn't heard of Apeel before and was really surprised when I looked it up because I was expecting to be horrified. I genuinely hope it is safe, both for the sake of people who don't have a choice and also for the potential value in reducing food waste.
I'm not able to find out whether palladium can be easily rinsed off because Google is desperate to sell me boots, but the company does claim you can wash the fruit, so I hope that's adequate. I do know that lead can be easily washed off, so maybe?
No, I like to learn from other peoples’ perspectives and am glad you replied. I do take your point that avoiding food waste is also an important consideration. From my own experience, apples are still fresh and crisp weeks later, whereas before, I would’ve been throwing away entire bags of rotten apples instead of just the skin. It’s also easy to hone in on something like food additives and overlook things like wrapping produce in plastic that you mentioned having possible harmful health effects and definite harmful environmental effects. It’s quite possible that the heavy metals can be washed off, though I’m not sure that is well-studied. I’ll keep peeling my ‘Murican Apeel-coated apples in the meantime.
It's been a while since I've seen a cucumber in plastic. The whole thing looks like a synthetic type of wax, waxing apples is definitely legal in the EU (also, a unwashed apple off the tree has a natural wax coat, and they continue to produce wax in storage) but I think it's only natural waxes. You could probably get a novel synthetic one approved but the sales aren't going to be worth the paperwork.
Everything in the EU needs approval, it's not a "wait and see" type of situation, and E-numbers generally have approval for certain uses, it's not a blank cheque. It might be fine in this instance but making it a free-for-all would quickly dilute the standards. Also "quantum satis" ("whatever amount is sufficient to achieve the effect") would lose its meaning if you take the desired effect out of the E number.