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Safe Food Campaign media release 16 December 2022 “By not buying certain types of food packaging, you will lower undesirable chemicals going into your body,” says Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign. Food packaging may be increasing persistent chemical contaminants in the body and environment. “For example, don’t buy microwave popcorn, which has several PFAS” This past week part of Auckland’s water supply has been shut down due to PFAS levels. What are PFAS and where do they come from? PFAS, also labelled “forever chemicals” because of their persistence, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, have been found in a number of water sources in New Zealand[1]. “PFAS are likely found in the blood of virtually every person on the planet, including newborn babies and animals,” states a scientific editorial published this year [2]. Some PFAS have been linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, decreased immunity, hormone disruption and a range of other serious health problems[3]. One New Zealand authority concluded the levels of PFAS found here "are unlikely to cause immediate adverse health effects” [4]. But researcher Dr Melanie Kah, from the University of Auckland, points out it is not yet understood what level of PFAS is safe. “There is still so much that is unknown,” says Dr Kah. “Guidelines for safe levels are not available for all PFAS, and the guidelines we do have are being revised constantly as more ecotoxicological and health data becomes available[1].” Food packaging containing PFAS include grease-resistant paper, fast food containers or wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes and lolly wrappers. The chemicals are used to make packaging resistant to water, oil and heat. A European survey of five countries found nearly half of fast food analysed contained PFAS, sometimes with extremely high levels [5]. Other PFAS sources include non-stick cookware, stain and water-repellent carpet and fabric, shampoo, cosmetics, dental floss and varnish. “Use your power as a consumer to ask sellers and manufacturers not to use these chemicals,” says Ms White. “There are alternatives. These alternatives don’t need to be made from fossil fuels that also add to climate change.” Notes PFAS – pronounce pea-fass [1] https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/01/14/study-confirms-pfas-in-urban-water.html [2] https://rdcu.be/c1DdA [3] http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/publications.html [4] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/480552/watercare-looking-to-take-more-from-waikato-river-change-drought-levels-due-to-pfas [5] https://www.quechoisir.org/actualite-fast-foods-des-composes-indesirables-dans-les-emballages-n25932/

Children are being exposed to a cocktail of pesticides every time they eat non-organic raisins and sultanas. The latest New Zealand Total Diet Study (NZTDS)(1), released by the Ministry for Primary Industries, showed residues of 24 pesticides in just one sample, and all eight samples tested contained pesticides. Every five years, the New Zealand Total Diet Study (NZTDS) assesses our exposure to pesticides, contaminants and nutrients. Changes in reporting methods from lower and more delicate ‘limits of detection’ to ‘limits of reporting’ has resulted in a massive non-disclosure of pesticide detections. A coalition of groups (2) keen to improve food safety in New Zealand is urging action from the government to reduce pesticide residues. Some key features of the survey include: Foods with the greatest number of pesticides: raisins/sultanas (33), grapes (23), strawberries (18), bran flake cereal (16), nectarines (11), frozen mixed berries (10). Notably high levels of aluminium in muffins, scones, cakes and slices. 8 pesticides detected in baby food, in 22% of 32 samples. Neonicotinoid insecticides (known to harm bees) measured for the first time. The fungicide chlorothalonil, classified as a possible human carcinogen, by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (3) detected in 10 samples, highest level in celery. Glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen (IARC) and a potential reproductive toxin is an active ingredient in weed-sprays, such as Roundup. It is to be tested separately. “It is extremely concerning that 22% of baby foods tested had pesticides detected.” said Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign. “We urge the government to have zero tolerance for pesticide residues in baby food, and to carry out a national surveillance programme of pesticide residues in baby food. We expect the safety of baby food to be a priority for our government to focus on.” “Certain pesticides found in baby food in this study have been found to be linked to cancer progression and endocrine or hormonal disruption,” said Dr Heli Matilainen, cancer researcher and Safe Food Campaign co-governor. “Children (toddlers, babies), due to their actively developing nervous, endocrine and immune systems, are much more vulnerable to these residues than adults. This means that it is not the dose which is critical, but the timing of exposure, because doses thousands of times lower than those normally considered toxic may interfere with children’s development.” Ms. White advises bakers and consumers to be careful when buying baked goods, as high levels of aluminium were detected in these products. This could be due to an aluminium compound in baking powder, or use of aluminium tins and trays. “We are pleased that MPI has assured us they are going to conduct their own targeted glyphosate testing, but it must be on all foods sprayed with glyphosate, especially genetically engineered foods,” said Claire Bleakley of GE Free NZ. “Glyphosate residues have been found in a large variety of foods, including genetically engineered soy, corn, oilseeds and sugar products and New Zealand honey,” (4) Jodie Bruning of Rite-Demands agrees: “In other New Zealand monitoring, glyphosate has been found in wheat over 50 times our permitted maximum residue level (of 0.1mg/kg). Oats were not tested, but we know glyphosate is applied to all cereals. Glyphosate must be included in the TDS in future. It’s important to understand also, that cereal crops frequently have several different pesticide applications, including 2,4-D.”(5) “Given the fact that WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate as ‘Probably carcinogenic to humans’ (6), no glyphosate residues should be accepted in food - at all. There is generally no ‘safe level of intake’ for cancer-causing substances, such as glyphosate,” said Dr Heli Matilainen, cancer researcher and Safe Food Campaign co-governor. The most commonly purchased brands, as based on consumer data, are sampled during the NZTDS, however consumers are not informed which brands are the safest. “MPI has changed its method of data collection by up to 100 times for ‘high carbohydrate’ and ‘high fat’ products. This is disingenuous at least, as organochlorine pesticides like endosulfan, DDT and their metabolites are lipophilic and accumulate in fatty tissue. Parents and children deserve to see the levels these chemicals are detected at, not the levels MPI elect to disclose.” said Mrs. Bruning. “The fudging of data by MPI is hiding what appears to be an increase in pesticide residues in New Zealand’s food,” said Steffan Browning of Soil & Health. “While we applaud the new inclusion of neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxic to people as well as bees, consumers deserve to be better informed about which brands of food are more likely to contain residues.” “The best way to lessen these residues and contaminants going into our bodies is to eat organic food, and this is especially important for children,” said Mr. Browning. “What parent wants to give raisin and sultana products with 22 or 24 different chemical residues to their children?” “Unfortunately some of the foods most liked by children – raisins, sultanas, grapes and strawberries – are the ones with the most pesticides in them, and parents should be especially careful to ensure that their children eat these only as certified organic,” said Dr Meriel Watts of Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand. “Children’s exposure to pesticides, including residues in food, can impact on their childhood development and their propensity for diseases such as cancer later in life. Nobody actually has any real understanding of the effect of 24 different pesticides together in one small box of raisins, because pesticides in mixtures such as this can behave very differently to the single pesticide assessed by MPI; and it is unconscionable for the government to pretend this cocktail is safe when they have never tested it.” The coalition member organisations are calling for zero tolerance to pesticides in baby food, more transparency and consumer information to identify what pesticides are in what products, glyphosate testing implemented immediately, a cross government pesticide reduction strategy and support for transition to organic production. Producers must be held accountable for selling food containing multi pesticide residue foods that are unfit for the community. References: (1) New Zealand Total Diet Study | Food business | NZ Government (2) Coalition: Soil & Health Association of New Zealand, Safe Food Campaign, Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand, GE Free NZ and RITE: a Safer System for Pesticide Assessment. (3) https://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol73/mono73-11.pdf (4) Rubio F, Guo E, Kamp L (2014) Survey of Glyphosate Residues in Honey, Corn and Soy Products. J Environ Anal Toxicol 4: 249. (5)The 2015/2016 Report on Pesticides in Fresh and Frozen Produce https://www.mpi.govt.nz/food-safety/whats-in-our-food/chemicals-and-food/agricultural-compounds-and-residues/glyphosate/ (6) http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol112/mono112-10.pdf Written 5 June 2018 with help from: Alison White, Safe Food Campaign NZ Steffan Browning, Soil & Health Association New Zealand Jodie Bruning, Rite-demands.org Dr Meriel Watts, Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand Claire Bleakley, GE Free NZ

Is canola oil good or bad for you? Is it the same as rapeseed oil? It's one of the cheapest oils you can buy, and is being used more and more in processed food. It is probably genetically engineered, and if you heat it to a high temperature, it can form products harmful to your health, e.g. aldehydes. In its refined form that you buy in the supermarket, the nutrients would not be significant. Read this comprehensive article about canola oil. Any oil that has to go through a lot of processing before the oil is extracted is likely to be less beneficial for you. Canola oil is a case in point: it has to go through so many long chemical processes, as the article above outlines. Ideally, any oil you buy would be less refined, fresh and organic, and you would not heat it very much if at all. Oils for cooking Oils we suggest for cooking are coconut oil, ghee, avocado oil or, to a low temperature, butter or olive oil. Oils for eating raw Oils we suggest for eating raw are flaxseed, hempseed, extra virgin olive, walnut. It is better to minimise your cooking with oils, and avoid using polyunsaturated oils such as 'vegetable oil'. What about rice bran oil? Rice bran oil does seem to have the advantage of a higher smoking point, 232C, compared to other oils, and it has an even balance of polyunsaturated, monosaturated and saturated. However the proviso remains that the higher you heat the oil to, the more likely that harmful compounds could be formed, especially from the polyunsaturated components. I would recommend saturated oils over rice bran. What temperature is too high? Aldehydes are lower in canola oil than coconut oil at 180C (optimum deep frying temperature), however another chemical acrolein is higher in canola oil, and this has the potential to cause indoor pollution problems. One conclusion I would draw from this is that the higher the temperature, the worse it gets, and this is especially true for polyunsaturated oils. What is a healthier alternative to frying? If you have the luxury of having an air fryer at home, this does seem to be a good solution for the dilemma of 1) using too much oil and 2) using an oil which is harmful for your health. Written by Alison White, Safe Food Campaign NZ June 2020

What are the alternatives and what can be recycled? Plastics are not only breaking down into microplastics, causing environmental damage for generations, but right now, in contact with your food, they may be leaching chemicals, causing health problems. Look for the numbers 1-7 in a recycling triangle at the bottom of a plastic container to identify what plastics can be recycled. Particularly avoid numbers 3, 6 and 7. Worldwide about 70% of plastics end up in the sea, microplastics end up in food. Number one thing you can do immediately is cut down on single use plastics. Most plastics are made from petrochemicals therefore linked to climate change. Plastics are especially volatile if exposed to heat; dishwashers, sun and microwaves. Be aware that in the future, using starch from plant materials and seaweed may not be a good use of land or natural resources, we need to limit our use of packaging and find inventive ways to conserve. Keeping food fresh Use glass wherever you can for food storage, go to op shops for recycling. Cover with a damp tea towel or a plate in the fridge; buy or make beeswax covers (health effects of silicone covers is undetermined and not usually recycled). Take a reusable box to buy sushi and at meat counters in supermarkets. For parties, plates and cutlery and glassware, buy cheaply second-hand at op shops. Genuine cellophane is compostable, made from plants. Blogging gives your site a voice, so let your business’ personality shine through. Choose a great image to feature in your post or add a video for extra engagement. Are you ready to get started? Simply create a new post now. Never ever burn plastic Unfortunately this is all too common a practice Cardboard and other plant based biodegradable packaging can be buried in the garden or weighed down under trees and shrubs to decompose, use as mulch reducing need for water. Collect small papers in a cardboard box and mulch the whole thing, worms soon come along and eat the contents. What can be recycled in New Zealand? No.1 can be recycled. PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate - most 2 litre or less drink bottles), RPET is made and recycled in NZ, a low risk of leaching. No.2 can be recycled. HDPE (High Density Polyethylene -milk bottles), low leaching into food and environment. No. 3 AVOID, PVC, very difficult to recycle (some plastic bottles, food wrappers and take away containers, children’s toys, wall paint, pipes, vinyl flooring,) PVC (polyvinyl chloride or just vinyl) is a known human carcinogen and very damaging to the environment. When chlorine in PVC is produced, used or burned, the process creates dioxin, one of the most toxic hazards known to man. Phthalates are often added to PVC to make it pliable, in children’s toys for example. They are unbound to the plastic so can leach out readily. Like dioxin, phthalates are a suspected endocrine or hormone disruptor. No.4, can sometimes be recycled LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene – bread bags, some cling wraps) No.5, can sometimes be recycled PP (polypropylene – containers) No. 6 AVOID polystyrene cannot be recycled (PS - cups, Styrofoam products) Landfill only, toxic in contact with food. Polystyrene is a suspect carcinogen, and contains p-nonylphenol, an endocrine disruptor. Sometimes used by takeaways to keep food warm, it can take thousands of years to break down. No. 7 AVOID, cannot be recycled, can include polycarbonate, with highly toxic BPA’s .eg fillings Depending on your location within New Zealand, the local council by-law does allow for foil to be recycled, as long as it has been cleaned of food/grease. Unfortunately many “paper” food wrappings, including most teabags and coffee cups, contain a mix of paper and plastic and can’t be recycled and end up in the landfill. A UK Government paper on biodegradable packaging examines whether the standard required for all such “alternative plastics should be that they could be home composted. Reduction is far more important than recycling, and a fundamental shift away from all single-use packaging, plastic or otherwise, is now necessary,” the report said. For further info 1. Excellent NZ site: https://therubbishtrip.co.nz/ 2. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/standards-for-biodegradable-compostable-and-bio-based-plastics-call-for-evidence 3. https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/plastic-packaging 4. https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/what-you-can-and-can-t-recycle 5. https://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/recycling-by-the-numbers.html Jacky Pearson November 2019, Safe Food Campaign NZ

Sign our parliamentary petition to get rid of the insecticide chlorpyrifos! What is chlorpyrifos? It is a controversial pesticide found in our food and persistent in the environment. It is a type of insecticide or organophosphate, long known to cause brain damage, especially in the unborn child, even at very low levels of exposure. NZ study What motivated us to do this petition now was an NZ study that came out in May 2022. This study for the first time ever looked at urine samples from 501 children in different areas of NZ. Pesticides were found in more than 80% of the samples, including various organophosphates, pyrethroids and 2,4-D. The most alarming finding was that the levels of chlorpyrifos (and chlorpyrifos-methyl, a chemical cousin) were 2.2 to 7.3 times higher than in other countries, such as the US, Spain and Thailand. What is it in? The last Total Diet Study (2016) found chlorpyrifos in frozen mixed berries, sultanas/raisins, bread or food with wheat, and peanut butter. Other government surveys with more sampling have found it in baby food, grapes, tomatoes, avocados, various green vegetables and other fruit, namely, apricots, peaches, pears, mandarins. Worldwide action There is much research about the bad effects of chlorpyrifos on our bodies and the environment, too much to quote here. Suffice to say that more than 39 countries have now banned it, including the EU, Canada, and even the US. It is classified as a Persistent Organic Pollutant under the Stockholm Convention, in other words, it is past time for NZ to get rid of it!