By Daniela Galarza
Coffee products (click here) in California will soon include cancer warning labels — assuming an LA judge’s recent decision stands. This means shops like Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee, in additional to smaller roasters like Four Barrel, may soon be required to post signage or include warnings on individually packaged products or in physical retail locations.
According to the Associated Press, a Superior Court judge ruled in support of a suit filed by Council for Education and Research on Toxics, who say they want consumers to be aware of a carcinogen called acrylamide, which is produced during the coffee roasting process. Coffee lobbyists argue that acrylamide, a known carcinogen, is “harmless” at the levels it’s found in roasted coffee; they did not see a need to include a cancer warning because the chemical “results naturally from the cooking process to make the beans flavorful.”
The proposed ruling — which falls under the state’s proposition 65, a rule that says businesses must give customers a “clear and reasonable warning” about ingredients or materials that may affect health — could be challenged and reversed, though a reversal is unlikely, according to the A.P....
To abandon coffee is to abandon an entire culture in the USA that has provided a way of life for many in impoverished countries.
"Fairtrade" (click here)
Coffee is one of the world's most popular beverages and 80% of it is produced by 25 million smallholders....
The truth of the matter is this concern about acrylamide goes far beyond coffee.
Acrylamide (click here)
Acrylamide is a chemical used primarily to make substances called polyacrylamide and acrylamide copolymers. Polyacrylamide and acrylamide copolymers are used in many industrial processes, such as the production of paper, dyes, and plastics, and in the treatment of drinking water and wastewater, including sewage. They are also found in consumer products, such as caulking, food packaging, and some adhesives.
Acrylamide is also found in some foods. It can be produced when vegetables that contain the amino acid asparagine, such as potatoes, are heated to high temperatures in the presence of certain sugars (1, 2). It is also a component of tobacco smoke....
I believe a time component is part of this as well. In other words, eating toast when light brown is okay, but, burnt toast at the same temperature as unburnt toast, will contain acrylamide.
The information about the issue of acrylamide and how it relates to food is well studied. This is not a surprise to anyone, except, perhaps the public. So, I'll let the experts tell the tale.
Oh, the Maillard reaction? Every chemical reaction known to scientists/chemists that is predictable has the name of the person who discovered it.
Louis Camille Maillard (click here)
Nutr Cancer. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as:
Nutr Cancer. 2014; 66(5): 774–790.
Published online 2014 May 29
Mandeep K. Virk-Baker, Tim R. Nagy, Stephen Barnes, and John Groopman
...In 2002, (click here) the Swedish National Food Administration first reported the presence of acrylamide in foods (1). Acrylamide is a by-product of the cooking process and is formed when reducing sugars (glucose or fructose) react with the amino acid asparagine during the Maillard reaction (click here) (2;3), the reaction responsible for the browning of food during baking, frying, and roasting. The levels of acrylamide in cooked foods are thus influenced by factors such as the cooking temperature, length of cooking time, moisture content, and the amount of reducing sugar and asparagine in raw foods (4–6). In potatoes, the level can be affected by cultivar variety (7), fertilizer use (8), and storage temperature (9). For instance, the storage of potatoes at 2°C results in increased free sugar content that converts to higher acrylamide levels during cooking as compared with potatoes stored at 20°C (9;10). Variations of acrylamide content in various foods, and between batches of the same foods, have presented a challenge for estimating the actual intake by using the commonly used approach such as the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). These variations also present a major challenge of accurately classifying individuals with low or high acrylamide intake....
