Shutterstock / Roman Prishenko
In recent years, Nutella has climbed its way onto the podium of America’s most beloved condiments. It’s not yet competing with ketchup and mustard, but it certainly gives Sriracha and Tabasco a run for its money in terms of popularity…Until a recent report.
Damaging news is now circulating that grocery stores are pulling Nutella from their shelves because of a report indicating that one of the ingredients in Nutella can cause cancer. Specifically, it’s the palm oil present in Nutella which can cause cancer and it has to do with the oil being heated up to a specific temperature.
Here’s the skinny, via The Lad Bible:
“Making Nutella without palm oil would produce an inferior substitute for the real product; it would be a step backward,” Ferrero’s purchasing manager Vincenzo Tapella told Reuters.
The fear of a cancer risk is because of glycidyl fatty acid ester (GE), which is produced in palm oil when it is heated above 200 degrees Celsius, according to the Independent.
“There is sufficient evidence that glycidol is genotoxic and carcinogenic, therefore the Contam panel did not set a safe level for GE,” chair of Contam, the EFSA panel that investigated palm oil, said in May.
200 degrees Celsius equals out to 392 degrees Fahrenheit, and that’s not an unreasonable temperature to be cooking dishes with Nutella in them. So the concern is very real here.
From the grocer’s perspective, the reason Nutella is being ripped from shelves is because there are complaints that Nutella hasn’t done enough to educate the public on what can happen when palm oil is heated to 392-degrees.
For more on this potentially damaging report for Nutella, you can CLICK HERE to see all the details.