A controversy over palm oil threatens to cast a pall over Nutella, the delicious chocolate-hazelnut spread made by the Italian company Ferrero. Headlines like “Nutella Can Cause Cancer, Study Warns” have circulated across the internet this week, but is Ferrero really including an ingredient that might give consumers cancer?
The study, released by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) last May, does not say that Nutella can cause cancer. What the study does say is that palm oil, an ingredient in Nutella, releases potentially carcinogenic chemicals when refined at high temperatures. Palm oil, derived from the fruit of palm trees, is used in plenty of food. When refined at around 200 degrees Celsius, the study says, palm oil releases a contaminant known as glycidyl fatty esters (GE) in higher levels than other vegetable oils. Previous studies have shown that GE can cause tumors in rats and mice, leading EFSA to characterize it as a “potential health risk” for children and anyone who consumes it in high amounts.
It’s important, of course, to remember that humans aren’t rats, so the findings may translate imperfectly to people. In an email, an EFSA spokesperson said that “at the moment, there is no scientific evidence” of a link between exposure to GE and cancer in humans, noting that “our conclusions are based on available evidence on experimental animals.”
Ferrero tells Reuters that it refines palm oil at just under 200 degrees Celsius, using a low-pressure process that minimizes GE levels. The EFSA declined to comment on the safety of lower-temperature processing, saying that it “was outside of the scope of the opinion” published last year. But the spokesperson said that the presence of contaminants would presumably increase at higher temperatures, and that it could therefore decrease at lower temperatures.
Ferrero launched a major ad campaign on Italian TV and in newspapers last year to defend Nutella, after sales in Italy dipped through the first part of 2016. The manufacturer attributes some of that
