Do you know if PFAS are only present in meat? Are plants also affected?
> Seven out of eight US kale samples recently tested for toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” contained high levels of the compounds.
> The testing looked at conventional and organic kale bought at grocery stores across the country, and comes after Food and Drug Administration analyses conducted between 2019 and 2021 found no PFAS contamination.
> The findings “stunned” researchers who expected to find low levels of the chemicals, said Robert Verkerk, founder of the Alliance for Natural Health non-profit, which produced the paper.
>“It’s pretty scary and there’s no easy solution,” he said, adding that the findings highlight the need for the FDA to implement a more robust PFAS testing program for the nation’s food supply.
- For PFOS and PFOA, ‘Fish and other seafood’ was the most important contributor to the mean exposure, followed by ‘Eggs and egg products’, ‘Meat and meat products’, and ‘Fruit and fruit products’. For PFOA, ‘Vegetables and vegetable products’ and ‘Drinking water’ were also important contributors. For several of the other PFASs, ‘Fish and other seafood’, ‘Fruit and fruit products, ‘Vegetables and vegetable products’, ‘Drinking water’, as well as ‘Starchy roots and tubers’ were the most important food groups.
- Diet is the major source of PFAS exposure for most of the population, but other routes such as dust ingestion and indoor air inhalation may also contribute substantially
- PFASs are transferred from soil to plants. In general, transfer rates are higher for the short chain PFASs and decrease from roots to leaves to fruits.
- In food producing animals, PFASs transfer from feed to animal derived food like milk, eggs and meat, with clear differences between species and the type of PFAS. This is also relevant for soil ingestion by foraging farm animals
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I think the conclusion is that everything is potentially exposed, so the individual source is more important than the type of medium. Another somewhat interesting article [2] showed how a sampled chocolate cake ended up with extremely high levels. It (probably) wasn't even from the cake itself, but from a chemical used to greaseproof paper at some point in its production. So my take from that would be, as always, to consume foods which have gone through minimal processing before getting to you.
[1] - https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa...
[2] - https://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/06/03/fda-high-levels-pfas...
As we are talking about chocolate pie I assume that they are lipohilic. But vegetables aren't an homogeneous group and some seeds and fruits have a lot of oil. We could find that meat is safer than some of them and expect a much higher variability inside the group than with meat.
The main question to ask here is if this chemicals are causing chronic inflammation and in that case if is related with the obesity epidemic. We know that people living in the upper course of the rivers and allegedly drink better quality water are less obese on average.
A possible null hypothese to start could be: A body accumulating toxic substances in the fat cells, could react making more fat cells as a defense (to dilute the poison by cell)?.
Are somebody checking if the areas with more chemicals in the water show a higher average of Body Mass Index?
The lab grown stuff might be the only way we can eat meat without these chemicals in it now.
The FDA suggests that the primary issue at least in the US right now is seafood[1].
[1] https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/questions...
Can you explain the conclusion of your research? I'm in the exact same situation and currently looking so it would be immensely helpful. Thank you.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/30/kale-pfa...