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Originally posted on Changing Habits 2017 It’s funny where life takes you and how it…
Apeel is approved in Australia for use on all fruits and vegetables and there are no labelling laws. What is Apeel?
The product Apeel is yet another example of stupidity when it comes to the goodness of organic, regeneratively grown fruits and vegetables.
The media shows it as preserving food and reducing food waste, hunger of communities and saving humanity, but I see it as another chemical being sprayed on food for financial gains.
The marketing for this product describes Apeel as simply another layer of what already exists naturally on fruits and vegetables but when we look deeper, the marketing isn’t exactly telling the whole truth.
Instead of empowering people to have fruit trees in their yards and nature strips, this is yet another attempt to stop the natural ripening, progression, and spoilage of food. There is no long-term safety studies on what it may do to the health of the gut microbiome, the gut integrity and soil ecology.
What is Apeel or Organipeel (the organic version)?
Apeel is the company and the name of the product that is making a coating for fruits and vegetables that is meant to extend the shelf life of the food. The company was funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and founded by World Economic Forum Young Leader James Rogers.
Australia’s FSANZ have approved the coating as has the US FDA for all fruits and vegetables. In the USA, it will have to labelled but there seems to be no labelling laws happening in Australia or if there are, it is a state-by-state basis. Even if the food that has been treated is labelled, I’m concerned about restaurants, cafes and food processors using these coated fruits and vegetables but not having to declare anything on the menu/label.
The EU have allowed this product on citrus, avocado, pineapple, papaya, banana, mango, melon and pomegranate. In other words, for foods where you will remove the skin and therefore do not eat the coating. Whereas in other countries like Australia, and the USA it is allowed on all fruits and vegetables. This coating cannot be washed off.
I asked FSANZ for clarification of the approval here is their letter to me.
Hi Cyndi
Your enquiry regarding approval for mono and diglycerides (Apeel application) on coatings on all fruits and vegetables has come through to me.
The amendments resulting from Apeel’s application (application A1191) were approved on 3 Feb 2021 and have been in effect from 22 April 2021. The changes were made to Schedule 15-5 of the Code. You can access Schedule 15 via our website.
You may wish to have a look at the A1191 approval report for details on labelling. If you require further advice on labelling and meeting Code requirements, I would suggest contacting your relevant State or Territory enforcement agency, we cannot provide this advice.
I then asked for clarification on labelling:
The labelling requirements are found in Part 1.2 of the Food Standards Code, Labelling and Other Information Requirements. You do need to be aware of and understand these requirements for making and selling food in Australia and NZ.
https://www.foodstandards.govt.nz/code/Pages/default.aspx
In other words no labelling laws required.
It’s very much like when you read an ingredient label, there is no sign of any of the chemicals on the label that were used in the growing process such as glyphosate, paraquat, chlorpyrifos, atrazine but it is inevitable that these chemicals will be in some parts per million or billion in the food.
Another example of this, is the process that is done to lettuce, greens, cut fruits and vegetables where you will not see the ingredient – natureseal on the list as it is a process not an ingredient. I write about Natureseal in my book Lab to Table.
Let’s take a popular apple cider vinegar that has been purchased by a famous singer and her husband who also have ties with Bill and Melinda Gates. If they are using the apples sprayed with Apeel to make the apple cider vinegar, what are the additional contaminants now added into the product. To make sure, I will be purchasing my local Hilbilby Fire Tonic over any other apple cider vinegar product moving forward.
The Two Stages of Apeel
Apeel is applied in two stages;
Stage 1- Before harvest it’s called invisipeel, it has pesticidal, fungicidal and preservative qualities.
Stage 2 – After harvest called Edipeel, it is a physical barrier
Together they are called Apeel, it can only be applied by an apeel scientist, or someone trained by the scientist. It cannot be washed off. Here is an old screen shot from the Apeel website:
They have stated that they only use food ingredients but as you will see below, most of these ingredients cannot be found in a pantry! Well maybe salt, however I would never use a refined salt and definitely not vegetable oil that has been turned into glycerides using solvents, heavy metals and trans fats.
Here are the Ingredients.
Glycerolipids (vegetable oils) mono and di glycerides, esters amides, thiols, carboxylic acids, ethers, aliphalic waxes, alcohols, salts (inorganic and organic) alkenyl groups including propenyl, n-butenyl, in cis and trans bonds (in other words trans fats)
The Organic Apeel contains 0.6% citric acid and 99.4% other ingredients but I can’t find clarification of the other 99.4% of ingredients.
Let’s take a closer look at the ingredients.
All of the ingredients are GRAS (generally regarded as safe), each has been tested individually but not tested in conjunction with each other.
The patent for making the glycerol which is just one of the ingredients is seen in the screen shot below.
Heptane or ethyl acetate may be used interchangeably as the solvent, here is the safety data sheet.
Questions to ask
Who is making the chemicals/ingredients
My conclusion
I’m grateful for the stores who have decided to not purchase produce coated in Apeel, I know that Costco USA have declared they will not purchase fresh produce coated in Apeel and I’m hoping Australian Costco will follow.
I’m not sure if the processing with Apeel has started in Australia but to be safe, purchase your fruit and vegetables from your local farmers market. Ask questions of your local IGA store to make sure they are not buying products laced in Apeel.
Please see the references below so that you can also research this yourself and stay tuned for further updates from me as I receive them.
Cyndi
Refrences
Microsoft Word – A1191 Approval Report post Board (foodstandards.gov.au)
https://patents.justia.com/patent/11447646
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Suzanne Vasanji says:
The reason I looked this up is because I was looking through a fairly local organic grower of fruit and vegetables in S Australia. Among their list of potatoes was the nice pink potatoes which had a lovely peel and they then used the word A-peel to state how appealing they were. It then went onto say there was a lovely aspect to them as they would last longer even when cut. That drew my attention as I’d already heard about the product Apeel and Bill and Melinda Gates association. I wondered if an organic farm would introduce this to one type of vegetable over another as it was not mentioned on the others they had. I decided to see if I could find how it’s being used in Australia and came across your article. It is one scary thing to think of eating food that has been sprayed with this stuff and not know what harm it is doing to your microbiome. As far as I know the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the WEF have never done anything to benefit the populations though they try to make out that that’s what they are doing. We have I think seen otherwise. If I were to consider buying from this farm which looks good I would of course ask them about the Apeel.
Moira McFarlane says:
Unfortunately some vendors at Farmers markets are not true off the farm vendors. Some are buying 2nd 3rd grade at the wholesale market and even buying from spud shed and passing the product off as “off the farm”. Most fruit and veg vendors are honest I think but point is how do know what you are really buying. People are entitled to make the decision on what they put in their body treated or untreated. But can I find a list of where to buy untreated fruit and veg is next to on impossible. Do you have an answer? Please don’t say grow your own.i just want to be able to choose that is my right as an Australian. Thank you.
Alison says:
WOW!! I cured my 24/7 chronic back pain by ditching packaged / processed foods due to additives, this looks like a continuation of a nightmare i just woke from
Eleni says:
Please post a list of growers who use and don’t use apeel or Organipeel.
I bought an organic avocado and it certainly had a coating on it, I drew it in the bin.
The no on it was 94225 which is meant to be organic but the 4225 is apeel, they put the 9 in front to fool us.
Food is not enjoyable anymore.
Amanda says:
Thank you for your time and research, I wasn’t aware that apeel had been approved so long ago and only started to look after an apple my son and I were sharing skin peeled off weirdly when we bit into the slices. Knowing that we are all part of the same corporation with taxes going to independent country Washington DC, I hold great hopes for RFK Jnr becoming the health minister and putting these corporations out of business permanently, but in the meantime, we have to try and survive. Love your work 🙂
Elizabeth says:
Does anyone know what happens to the peels removed from coated produce when they are put into a compost heap or fed to livestock? How long will they take to break down? What do the ingredients do in the soil? Are we going to just be diverting all these food scraps back to landfill sites, just when the message about enriching soil with good, organic materials is starting to take hold?
David Ritter says:
I contacted Australian Organic Limited about this. Here is their reply:
Thank you for reaching out to Australian Organic Limited (AOL) around this product. Under the Australian Certified Organic Standard (ACOS), there are no Apeel products approved for use at this stage. We have received a lot of questions around Apeel use in organic products due articles like this:
https://thenutrition.academy/apeel/?v=8bcc25c96aa5
We have attempted to contact Apeel for a product specification sheet however have been unsuccessful. AOL are supportive of opportunities to naturally increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables to minimise food wastage. However, coating organic fruits and vegetables in an unknown product does not currently align with this mentality. Please rest assured this is not in nor allowed in Australian certified organic fruits and vegetable.
————-
So according to them, it is not allowed or used in Australian certified organic fruits and vegetables. If you buy certified organic, there will NOT be APEEL on them.
Cheers,
blucat/David
Simon says:
Thankyou for covering this, is there a way we can get involved with petitioning or protesting by against produce having anything without labelling that we can get involved with? This feels like another attack on consumer choice and health of our food supply and population
Joy says:
It is horrifying to think they can do stuff like thus to our food. Thank you for the heads up.
Pamela says:
I eat the skins of most fruit and sometimes chew avocado skins so I am concerned about the effects of Apeel on my health.
How can I stay healthy when only supermarket food is available to me?
Mark Danzic says:
Anything promoted by Gates or WEF is going to have a hidden agenda and no labelling here in AUS is horrendous
Jan Cashin says:
Thank you
Cheryl says:
How can we get updates on this issue? I’d love to know if cucumbers, avocados have this on. Especially would love to know if the organic apples and bananas have it. I’ve been buying the Woolies organic ones hoping they’re still free of it.
Jake says:
So we the people should have the right to know what ingredients are in our food and under the definition apeel is a food ingredient there for as a food ingredient it must be displayed on the ingredients if a apple is just a apple then it shouldn’t have any other ingredients and if so the ingredients should be on the packaging aka the skin of the apple why is no one saying anything this is crazy like fluoride in tooth past the safety data sheet clearly tell us how it should be stored and monitored but our laws don’t follow the safety data that is law and by passed it through the fda how is this legal us the people should have the right to know what is in our products