‘Food danger in your kitchen’

DOES your dinner plate leak lead; do your stainless steel saucepans deposit chromium; does your strainer add carcinogens; do your plastic containers pull polymers from your fatty rashers; or does your non-stick melamine lining release formaldehyde?

Knowing that your food is safe is one thing, but it can easily become dangerous if it is in touch with the wrong kind of utensils, storage containers or wrapping.

The experts in setting safe standards, the EU’s Community Reference Laboratory (CRL) for Food Contact Materials, yesterday agreed on a list of the most dangerous substances that can contaminate food in the everyday kitchen.

They include softeners in plastics, melamine linings on pans, silicone in soft baking trays, nylon in stirring utensils and strainers, and crockery containing too much lead and cadmium.

They react with food, sometimes at high temperatures and sometimes because the food is acidic or fatty, or when the food is stored for a long time. The chemicals are often cancer-causing or can interfere with people’s hormones if consumed in sufficient quantity.

The head of the new Food Contact Materials laboratory, Dr Catherine Simoneau, said the problem was mainly with cheap, substandard imports from outside the EU.

“People, when they are shopping for these goods, should look for the small glass and fork symbol that shows they have been properly tested and meet the EU standards,” she said.

The most ordinary food can cause chemicals to leak, like salad or tomato sauce reacting with plastic seals.