Sesame seeds.

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Pixabay / TheUjulala

Many products containing sesame seeds are subject to a “recall / recall” procedure due to the presence of ethylene oxide.

The latter is classified as a "carcinogenic agent", at a "content greater than the maximum regulatory limit," said on Monday the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF).

“The French health authorities were informed at the beginning of September by their Belgian counterparts (…) of the presence of a chemical product, ethylene oxide, at a content higher than the regulatory maximum limit in certain batches of imported sesame seeds », Explained the DGCCRF on its website.

She then said in a statement that these were imports from India.

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Consult the regularly updated list of products containing sesame affected by the recall.


👉https: //t.co/44W7f3rqeD pic.twitter.com/9InpQ5QiVX

- DGCCRF (@dgccrf) November 10, 2020

A substance banned in the EU

However, she emphasizes, ethylene oxide "is a substance classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR), the use of which is prohibited in the European Union as a product for the protection of foodstuffs. and animal feed since 2011 ”.

As for all the other substances classified as CMR, further specifies the DGCCRF, "it is advisable to limit as much as possible the exposure of consumers to this substance, a risk which may exist in the event of consumption of products containing it in the long term".

The health authorities "are not aware of reports of consumer poisoning with ethylene oxide in connection with the recalled products", she adds.

Consumers are invited to consult a regularly updated list on the Bercy site to check whether they are in possession of a product affected by this recall.

A list that keeps growing

Monday evening, the list of products in question was already very long, ranging from Nordic bread brand "La gerbe savoyarde", distributed by Intermarché, to multigrain tofu from La Vie Claire, including organic sesame seeds from Carrefour.

The alert was carried out through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, a European alert system reporting problems relating to agrifood products.

On November 10, the NGO Foodwatch estimated on its website that "it has been two months since the case of the contaminated sesame swells".

She referred to "sesame seeds from India, containing residues of ethylene oxide - a gaseous disinfectant, aimed among other things at preventing the formation of mold - banned within the Union but which we have found in food in doses a thousand times greater than the maximum tolerated limit in Europe ”.

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