According to a report by ANSES, the seaweed used to make maki often contains too much cadmium.
Fresh, dried or pan-fried: edible seaweed can be cooked in different forms. Popular in Asian cuisine, especially Japanese, they are now also consumed in France and Europe. One report of the National Agency for Health Security (Anses) finds that algae may contain a carcinogenic substance, cadmium, in excessive quantities.
#FoodAlgae – ANSES makes #recommendations to avoid over-exposure of the population to #cadmiumclassified substance #carcinogenic for the man.
Learn more ➡️ https://t.co/1gTuVFYtrI pic.twitter.com/ur56syGEeE
— Anses (@Anses_fr) July 27, 2020
Disorders associated with algae
The composition of algae makes them more likely to store metallic elements, such as lead, arsenic or cadmium. The latter is widely distributed in the environment, due to industrial and agricultural activities. Cadmium is one of the recognized carcinogens: it is responsible for kidney damage in humans, can cause bone fragility and is harmful to reproduction.
A concentration above the recommended level
ANSES took around 250 samples from unprocessed seaweed intended for food. She finds that 26% of them contain more than 0.5 mg of cadmium per kilo. This weight constitutes the threshold determined by the Superior Council of Public Hygiene of France. Depending on the variety of algae, the concentrations are not equivalent. ANSES considers that brown macro-algae, such as wakame, and red macro-algae, such as nori, which is used to make sheets for maki, are generally more contaminated with cadmium than other species.
Reduce concentrations to preserve the population
Faced with this observation, the organization suggests setting lower thresholds. It recommends limiting the concentration of cadmium in edible seaweed to 0.35 milligrams per kilogram of dry matter. According to his findings, this would allow “to ensure, in 95% of cases, that the tolerable daily intake of cadmium is not exceeded”, because this material is present in other foods, but also in tobacco smoke. According to ANSES’s observations, algae currently represent 19% of the tolerated daily intake of cadmium. If the concentrations were reduced according to its recommendations, this proportion would drop to 11.5%.
In 2010, 20 million tons of algae were produced worldwide, compared to only two million in 1970. Most of them come from phytoculture, that is to say from a culture of mass intended for sale.
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