California judge says coffee must be served with acrylamide cancer warnings
09 May 2018 --- A Los Angeles judge has ruled that coffee makers, including big players like Starbucks, must provide cancer warnings on coffee sold in California.
The ruling comes after a US non-profit group sued a wide range of coffee companies under a Californian law that requires products and places where cancer-causing chemicals are present to carry a warning.
The judge said that sellers did not show that the risk from consuming acrylamide was offset by the benefits of drinking coffee.
Due to the suspected toxicity of the substance, acrylamide levels in food have been monitored for years and are subject to much debate and discussion.
This Californian case comes shortly after new European Union legislation came into force recently concerning the amount of acrylamide in foods with “benchmark” levels being set for various products.
Passed by the EU last year, April 11 marked the beginning of the law in Europe which limits the amount of acrylamide allowed in packaged foods and forces manufacturers to closely examine and reduce acrylamide levels in products.
In an opinion adopted in 2015, the Scientific Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) confirmed that acrylamide in food potentially increases the risk of developing cancer for consumers in all age groups.
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