Trent professor urges acrylamide labels on food

Peterborough Examiner July 25, 2007
Article by Examiner Staff Writer Andrea Houston

First, she alerted Canada about the health risks of trans fats, now Trent University Prof. Alicja Zobel is warning against another food toxin she thinks is even more serious.

Found in baked and fried starchy foods, such as potato chips, breads and cookies, acrylamide has the potential to have far-reaching health effects in people, she said.

"This is very new. Canada can be the first country to get this on our labels," Zobel said. "It is very important people can see on their food labels the chemicals that are contained inside.

"Acrylamide is a more dangerous carcinogen than trans fat."

Zobel, who met with Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal yesterday, told The Examiner she plans to lobby to have acrylamide added to the nutritional information labels on all mass-produced food products.

Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro cancelled a meeting with Zobel yesterday, she said.

She said Del Mastro plans to tape an interview with her on the acrylamide issue Friday to air on her Trent Radio program in September.


Acrylamide is a chemical that forms in certain foods, particularly plant-based foods that are rich in carbohydrates and low in protein during processing or cooking at high temperatures, usually 175 C or higher.

"This is a carcinogen and carcinogens can cause cancer," Zobel said. "Why is cancer rates increasing in our culture? Because we have so many carcinogens in our environment. We eat them and we breathe them in."

Acrylamide was first confirmed to be found in food by the Swedish National Food Authority in 2002.

Research has found exposure to large doses of acrylamide can cause damage to the male reproductive glands and experiments have found the chemical causes cancer in laboratory mice.

"This chemical is even in children's food because of the sugar," Zobel said. "Because they split the sugar into its different chemicals that's what increases the acrylamide."

The discovery was made in 2002 almost by accident at Uppsala University in Sweden, she said.

"We were given a $100,000 grant to find out why fish were dying under a dam," Zobel said. "My colleagues were analyzing how much this acrylamide is in the water that is killing the fish.

"By chance, one of the students was eating Pringles chips and got the chips into some of the beakers so the results were 10 times higher."

Suddenly, she said, three beakers showed a concentration was 50,000 per cent higher than allowed in the water for fish.

"It was unbelievable to me that we are eating this toxic chemical," Zobel said.

"If a government allows this much toxins to be in food, it is a crime."

Cheerios had 30 times more acrylamide than the fish water, she said. Health Canada estimates the typical Canadian adult is exposed, on average, to about 0.4 micrograms (millionths of a gram) of acrylamide per kilogram body weight each day (0.4 mg/kg b.w./day).

Health Canada says further research on the effects of exposure to acrylamide is needed before the risks of acrylamide exposure from food in humans can be fully understood.

Working with former Peterborough Liberal MP Peter Adams, Zobel said she petitioned Ottawa to have acrylamide put on food labels two years ago. The bill was defeated when the Liberals were defeated, she said.

"Now with Del Mastro I am working with the Conservatives to read the petition," she said. "Del Mastro is starting to understand acrylamide. I had to explain it a few times to him, though."

Zobel said it took her eight years to get trans fat written on package labels.

"Canada was the second country after Denmark to put trans fat on labels and I am very proud of that," Zobel said. "Americans took a whole year after us."