Palm oil is carcinogenic and can’t be eaten？ Food and Drug Administration： Low risk

Recently, a health research report issued by the European Food Safety Agency said that palm oil produced more chloropropanol esters and glycidyl esters than other vegetable oils in the process of high-temperature refining above 200℃. This result is alleged to bring cancer risk. Subsequently, the report that Nutella, a chocolate sauce owned by Ferriero, which contains palm oil, was taken off the shelves in some countries attracted consumers’ attention.

Widely used in food processing.

Palm oil mainly exists in processed food. Yangcheng Evening News reporter found in a large supermarket that the words "palm oil" can be found in the ingredient list of various instant noodles, potato chips, ice cream and biscuits.

Liu Chao, a food industry insider, said that palm oil is widely used in food processing, and some foods that only indicate the use of "vegetable oil" are likely to use "palm oil".

In a large grain and oil wholesale market in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, a stall owner selling palm oil told reporters that the products are mainly sold to food processing plants and food workshop owners. "There is basically no family purchase, and it is very cheap at three or four yuan a catty."

Liu Chao said that palm oil is not unsafe, mainly because it is not fragrant and will condense at 20 C, so it is rarely used by ordinary families; However, palm oil has the characteristics of stability and oxidation resistance, and the food fried with it has good color and is not easy to deteriorate. Palm oil is often used in instant noodle cakes and ingredients.

The food and drug supervision department said the risk was low.

Faced with consumers’ concerns about palm oil, china food and drug administration recently released the second issue of Food Safety Risk Analysis in 2017, and organized relevant experts to interpret it.

Some experts pointed out that chloropropanol ester and glycidyl ester are vegetable oil pollutants of global concern, and some studies think that these two substances have low risk of harm to human health. At present, there is no international limit standard for these two substances, and optimizing refining process can reduce the content of these two substances.

The Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety has assessed the exposure of people according to the content of chloropropanol esters in biscuits, vegetable oils, cakes and other foods. The results show that the health risks of chloropropanol esters ingested through food do not need special attention.

At present, the published research data in China also believe that the risk of glycidyl ester intake by the general population through food such as vegetable oil is low.

Some food safety experts suggest that the fatty acid composition of a single variety of edible oil is different, and its nutritional characteristics are also different. In life, it is best to "eat it in exchange" for cooking oil. For example, after eating peanut oil, change soybean oil, after eating rapeseed oil, change peanut oil, etc., and don’t eat one oil "black" to make the nutrition more balanced.