151 | Contaminated Food Leads to Olympics Doping Controversy | Lead in Cinnamon | AI Recipes |
Crying with laughter and slightly loose after pasta-related surgery...
This is The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.
Postcard from the Aussie food science conference;
Olympic Sport and Contaminated Food;
Lead in Cinnamon, an overview;
Food Safety News and Resources;
The Best Normal Dish For Getting Screwdrivers Out Of Your Food (AI recipes);
Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.
Hi everyone!
Welcome to Issue 151 of The Rotten Apple. This week’s issue is a tiny bit loose. It’s got probably the weirdest food fraud case of the year plus a piece about AI-generated recipes which had me crying with laughter and a head-scratcher about how Olympic athletes have avoided doping penalties because they had accidentally eaten steroid-contaminated hamburgers.
I blame the anaesthetic because I’m recovering from surgery after ingesting a sharp object in a pasta dish (full story next week).
Shoutout to 👏👏 Anna from Poland 👏👏 for becoming a paying subscriber last week, thank you!
Also, don’t forget to join me on Thursday for our August meet-up.
Cheers,
Karen
P.S. If you love this newsletter, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription for just $10 per month. Subscription fees are vital to the future of this publication and help to pay my pasta-related medical bills.
Postcard from AU food science conference
AIFST 2024
Last week I attended the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology annual conference in Sydney. Here’s a snapshot of what I learned.
I learned about risk assessments in the context of food contact materials made from renewable materials. ‘Gluten-free’ wheat-based edible packaging and serving ware is now a thing. Alarmingly, wheat-bran-based servingware and cups can transfer gluten into lasagna and other foods at levels dangerous for coeliacs.
I learned how food scientists are bringing together huge quantities of data from disparate locations and systems to train machine learning models for predictive analysis in meat operations.
I learned that unintentionally added bisphenol A (BPA) could become a major issue in recycled packaging materials used for foods destined for Europe.
I learned that the makers of DDT used to advertise how good it is for consumers (wow)
… And discovered that ChatGPT is great at writing SOPs for food safety systems.
The most valuable session I attended was led by Emma Kent of Emma Kent Consulting, who explained what ‘good’ looks like in food safety culture. She had some great practical suggestions and I’ll be sharing her insights in a future issue.
Olympic Sport and Contaminated Food
I take performance-enhancing drugs for sport. Caffeine in coffee mostly. It enhances my performance by helping me stay focused so I make good tactical decisions during races in my chosen sport of windsurfing.
It started in 2010 when I competed in a regatta sponsored by a coffee company. Unlimited free coffee for competitors, right at the water’s edge: oh the joy! I drank a lot of coffee during that event, and won a lot of races.
To this day I make sure I am properly caffeinated when competing in an important regatta.
Drug tests are not a thing at the events I attend, although if they were I would pass the tests, the allowed limit for caffeine being higher than anyone could comfortably ingest by drinking coffee.
Performance-enhancing drugs can be found in other foods too, but unlike caffeine in coffee, their presence is often unexpected, proving an unwelcome surprise for many elite athletes.
For example, at the 2011 Under-17 Soccer World Cup in Mexico, more than 100 athletes tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol, which promotes muscle growth. The source of the clenbuterol was restaurant food, with 30% of meat samples from the restaurants catering the event containing the substance and 52% of people in a non-athlete control group also testing positive.
The clenbuterol was in the meat because it was used illegally by beef growers in Mexico, with around one-quarter of slaughterhouses in 2015 suspended after livestock was found to contain clenbuterol.
It’s not just clenbuterol. Another Mexican athlete, an Olympic medallist race walker Maria Guadalupe González blamed meat containing trenbolone, an anabolic steroid and banned substance, for a failed drug test two years after she won silver. Like clenbuterol, trenbolone is used as a veterinary drug in beef cattle in Mexico.
The banned steroid nandrolone can also be found in meat, with American record-winning runner Shelby Houlihan testing positive after eating a burrito which her lawyers say may have contained meat from an uncastrated boar. Such meat can naturally contain nandrolone.
I’m just a weekend athlete, but for elite athletes, the dangers of a positive test from contaminated food are real and ever-present. Drug tests are ultra-sensitive, and can detect amounts at the parts per billion level, much lower than the level needed to enhance performance. Detections of even trace amounts can lead to disciplinary actions such as long bans from competition.
Performance enhancing drugs in food
Performance enhancing drugs can be present in food through accidental contamination, intentional addition or because they or their precursors are naturally present, like nandrolone in wild boar meat, or the morphine compounds naturally present in poppy seeds that caused a boxer to fail a drug test after eating five poppy seed bagels per day for weeks.
Intentionally added substances include clenbuterol, trenbolone and zeranol in beef meat, and metenolone in poultry meat which are used as veterinary drugs to treat meat animals and can remain as residues in the food.
Veal liver containing clenbuterol caused illnesses in twenty-two patients in France in 1991, with symptoms including tremors, headaches, tachycardia and dizziness. Similar outbreaks occurred in Spain and Portual in the 1990s and 2000s.
Naturally occurring banned substances can be found poppy-seed containing foods which can cause high urinary concentrations of morphine and codeine in people who have eaten two to three poppy-seed bread rolls.
Herbal coca tea, if consumed in the hours before a drug test, could give a positive result for cocaine. Spices including Sichuan pepper, black pepper and cinnamon contain the banned substance higenamine.
Cereal foods can contain the naturally occurring substance zeranol, a metabolite of the mycotoxin zearalenone produced by Fusarium fungi on spoiled cereals. Zeranol is a non-steroidal anabolic agent, banned in sport and animal production. It could be ingested by athletes in mould-contaminated cereals.
Accidental contamination
Under anti-doping rules, athletes are “responsible for whatever is in their body, regardless of how it got there.” Athletes are warned by governing bodies about the dangers of ingesting foods and supplements that could contain intentionally added or naturally occurring banned substances.
For example, Chinese officials warned athletes about Chinese meat containing prohibited substances before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the United States Olympic team took its own food to Beijing to mitigate the risks.
At the Rio Olympics in 2016, caterers guaranteed that all food in the Olympic village would be carefully vetted to ensure it did not contain any prohibited substances, and athletes were not allowed to take outside food into the village, while the Canadian team were told to only eat food they had brought from home when travelling to Rio to avoid any mishaps.
If an athlete does consume contaminated food, they may be exonerated if they can show officials that they ingested the prohibited substance unintentionally. They must provide evidence showing how the accidental ingestion occurred. However, such a defence doesn’t always work. For example, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld the ban on the American runner who ate the nandrolone-containing burrito, despite evidence showing the substance can be found in some meats.
Similarly, a Tour de France winning cyclist, Alberto Contador had his suspension upheld even though he had successfully traced a piece of meat he claimed was the reason for his clenbuterol-positive test to a farmer whose brother had been convicted for illegally using clenbuterol in meat production.
One athlete who did manage to avoid sanction was a Swiss man who returned a positive test for the diuretic HCTZ, which turned out to be present as an impurity in the coating of ibuprofen tablets he had taken before competing. Investigators obtained retention samples from the tablet manufacturer and performed tests using placebo tablets spiked with the substance to confirm that the levels found in the ibuprofen tablets could result in a positive urine test.
Olympic controversy
The Paris Olympics have just finished, and a cloud hangs over the relationship between major competing nations China, the United States and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) due to the contaminated food defence used by some athletes prior to this, and the previous summer Olympics in Tokyo.
WADA has announced it is concerned about the ‘tainted food’ defence and has launched an investigation into the prevalence of a performance enhancing substance in meat in certain countries.
Although it is the designated world authority on anti-doping, WADA is not responsible for testing or policing drug use and doping. The responsibility lies with each country and international sports bodies. WADA’s role is as a “backstop”, only stepping in when countries fail to properly police their athletes.
A key element in the 2024 controversy is related to a decision by the China Anti-Doping Agency to clear four members of the Paris Olympics China team - two swimmers, a shooter and a BMX rider - of any wrong-doing after they tested positive for the banned steroid metandienone in early 2023. The agency said the positive results were from contaminated food and that it had discovered metandienone in “dozens of” meat samples in China.
WADA commenced an investigation into metandienone in meat in early 2024.
The metandienone incidents follow a larger food contamination incident with the Chinese swimming team before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. During that incident, 23 members of the Chinse swimming team were cleared of wrongdoing after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ).
The detections were blamed on contaminated food served at a hotel where the 23 were staying for a training camp. The China Anti-Doping Agency determined the positive results were due to “environmental contamination” and this was accepted by the international governing body for swimming, World Aquatics.
WADA did not investigate the incident at the time, due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, when the incident became public in April 2024, they said they had carefully reviewed the evidence and stood by the decisions made and the processes followed.
There is an established history of veterinary drugs being found in Chinese meat. For example, researchers found detectable levels of clenbuterol in the urine of volunteers who had returned to Germany after being in China, with the substance found in 79% of volunteers’ urine samples (n = 28), compared to a control group with no detections.
The substance that affected the 23 swimmers in 2021 is, however, not a veterinary medicine but a human drug with no history of food contamination. TMZ is a drug used to treat heart disease in humans. It enhances athletic performance by helping with physical endurance.
After the 23 athletes tested positive for TMZ, investigators from the China Anti-Doping Agency found traces of TMZ in the hotel kitchen, in the extractor fan, spice containers and the drain.
How did a medication for humans with a heart condition get spread all over a hotel kitchen? Olivier Rabin, senior director of science and medicine at WADA told reporters that the contamination was possibly caused by a kitchen worker who was using the drug and contaminated the kitchen areas.
"The fact that the spice containers were found with traces of trimetazidine in the kitchen as well, is not incompatible with somebody [using] trimetazidine on site [who could] have contaminated those elements." Professor Olivier Rabin.
I’m wondering how many doses of TMZ a kitchen worker would have to handle during their shift for it to be found in an extractor fan and a drain.
A lawyer for WADA said the Chinese investigators who made the initial finding did not hypothesise about how the contamination occurred in their report and did not come up with “anything concrete” when interviewed by WADA.
WADA maintains they had no evidence, and could not have got any at the time of the incident, to disprove the contamination theory. As such, they would not have been able to overturn the Chinese agency’s decision.
Furthermore, both the Chinese anti-doping agency and WADA agree that the levels of TMZ found in the athletes were too low to convey performance enhancing effects.
In short: 🍏 Olympic athletes and anti-doping agencies are grappling with issues caused by food contaminated with performance enhancing substances 🍏 Some countries have failed to ban athletes who tested positive for banned substances by claiming they unintentionally ingested the substances in food 🍏 The international sports community questions whether such decisions have been made fairly by national agencies and umpired correctly by the international anti-doping agency 🍏
Lead in cinnamon – an overview
The more things change the more they stay the same. This week’s food safety round-up has yet another recall notice for lead in cinnamon. That’s the tenth brand mentioned in recalls and alerts this year.
Why are we finding so much cinnamon with elevated levels of lead? Because we are looking for it, in the wake of the USA’s WanaBana cinnamon applesauce puree scandal of late 2023.
In the case of WanaBana, the lead was almost certainly added deliberately to the cinnamon, in the form of lead chromate, an industrial textile colourant, for food fraud purposes – better-coloured cinnamon appears better quality and can be sold for a higher price.
The concentration of lead in the cinnamon used in the WanaBana applesauce was between 2,000 and 5,000 parts per million, more than two thousand times higher than the ‘safety’ limit of 2.5 ppm proposed for cinnamon by the United Nation’s Codex Alimentarius Commission.
The WanaBana incident is unlikely to be a one-off. Last decade, a sample of cinnamon tested during lead poisoning investigations by the New York City Department of Health, also contained exceptionally high concentrations of lead: 880 ppm. Such levels are likely to be the result of deliberate adulteration with a lead-containing substance.
The recent recalls for high lead in cinnamon are more likely to be due to accidental contamination than food fraud because the levels are much lower. For example, lead concentrations for products recalled in March were in the range of 2 to 3 parts per million (ppm), which is 1000 times lower than the cinnamon in the WanaBana products.
Another brand which was the subject of a health alert in July contained 20 ppm which is 100 times lower than the WanaBana cinnamon, although still an order of magnitude higher than proposed safety limits.
Lead chromate has a long history as an adulterant in turmeric, and has also been found in ground cumin. Another lead-containing colourant, lead oxide, has also been used to fraudulently adulterate spice: paprika adulterated with lead oxide caused mass lead poisoning in consumers in Hungary in the mid 1990s.
When it comes to unintentional contamination with lead, spices can be affected through environmental contamination, such as from soil, water and airborne dusts, and by cross-contact with lead-containing materials during processing, transport and storage. Surveys of cinnamon products in households and retail stores in the United States typically find levels in the range of 2 to 3 ppm.
Takeaways for food professionals
🍏 Lead is a known food safety hazard in cinnamon.
🍏 Lead is a known food fraud hazard in cinnamon, due to a history of deliberate adulteration with lead-containing materials such as lead chromate, and this hazard should be considered during food fraud vulnerability assessments.
🍏 If your company purchases powdered spices, heavy metal specification limits and analyses are recommended.
Further reading
Hore, P., Alex-Oni, K., Sedlar, S. and Nagin, D. (2019). A Spoonful of Lead: A 10-Year Look at Spices as a Potential Source of Lead Exposure. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, [online] 25, p.S63. doi: https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000876 .
Food Safety News and Resources
Our news and resources section has not-boring food safety news plus links to free webinars and guidance documents: no ads, no sponsored content, only resources that I believe will be genuinely helpful for you.
Weirdest food safety news of the week: a food contaminant that raises blood pressure in consumers.
Click the preview below to access it.
The Best Normal Dish For Getting Screwdrivers Out Of Your Food (AI Recipes)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic at the moment. The food science conference I attended last week had multiple sessions about machine learning and artificial intelligence. Some were good, others, not so much…. a bit like recipes generated with AI software.
Take a virtual stroll around the Amazon bookstore and you will find dozens of cookbooks that appear to be written by AI, sometimes without any apparent human intervention. The Ultimate Crockpot Cookbook for Beginners, for example, by Teresa J. Blair (2023), is a cookbook that contains almost nothing but mojito cocktail recipes. Mojito recipes in a crockpot cookbook? Okaaay.
Among the non-mojito recipes in this book, you will find Mama’s Mojito Chicken (skinless chicken breasts marinaded in rum, mint and lime juice) and Isl& Mojito Chicken& Rice. Isl&??? Throughout the book, ‘and’ has been replaced with ‘&’, hence ‘Island’ becomes ‘Isl&’ and a ‘handful of coriander’ becomes a ‘h&ful’.
Worryingly, Teresa J. Blair has also published a book on canning, pickling and fermenting. This made my food safety spidey senses tingle: get a canning or fermenting recipe wrong and someone’s gunna die.
It’s okay though, of the first eight recipes in Teresa J. Blair’s canning book, one is for teriyaki chicken wings, and the other seven are for cheese sticks: baked cheese sticks, deep-fried cheese sticks, low-fat cheese sticks, crispy cheese sticks, Stacey’s cheese sticks, string cheese sticks and pepper jack cheese sticks. Delicious, and thankfully free from any potentially dangerous processes that use canning, pickling or fermentation.
Real food safety risks can arise from AI-written recipe books, however. Last year mycologists urged people to avoid mushroom foraging books on Amazon that appear to be written by AI and which contain dangerous advice about mushroom identification.
But it’s not just recipe books where AI poses food safety risks. In May 2024, Google AI gave Mastodon user Joe Uchill unexpected advice when he asked if he could use gasoline to cook spaghetti faster. No, said the software, “but you can use gasoline to make a spicy spaghetti dish”, even providing a recipe which included the instructions: “Saute garlic and onion in gasoline until fragrant”.
“Saute garlic and onion in gasoline until fragrant”. Google AI
An app that was supposed to create recipes using household leftovers caused an uproar in 2023 after cheeky New Zealanders entered the names of non-food household items as ‘leftovers’. The app created recipes for dishes including ‘methanol bliss’ – a turpentine-flavoured french toast - ant-poison and glue sandwiches and ‘bleach-infused rice surprise’.
My favourite AI recipe moments come from Janelle Shane of AI Weirdness, who has been using neural networks to create recipes since 2020, with hilarious results. She cooked a chocolate brownie recipe which contained a cup of horseradish that made her eyes water when she removed it from the oven.
She also trained a neural network to make delicious-sounding recipe titles based on popular dishes. The results included Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake; Salmon Beef Style Chicken Bottom; Completely Meat Chocolate Pie; Cabbage Pot Cookies and Artichoke Gelatin Dogs.
Her AI-generated recipe for Crock Pot Cold Water contains water, cornstarch, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, butter and lard combined in a slow cooker. Yum!
But best of all is Janelle’s collection of recipes produced by a neural network trained on American vintage dishes. White Savory Curry will, according to its author, “satisfy whippersnappers, carnivores, and pet rabbits.” It's “easy to make, warm, and satisfying for everyone.” And “it's the best normal dish for getting screwdrivers out of your food.”
Get more vintage-inspired AI recipes here: AI + Vintage American cooking: a combination that cannot be unseen (I challenge you to read these without crying with laughter)
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
Is this the weirdest food fraud incident of 2024?
Two men have been given suspended prison sentences for adding undeclared antibiotics to food they were preparing in a restaurant. They said they put the drugs into the food because it was “rather unhygienic” and they wanted to prevent diners from getting diarrhoea. Each dish of cold appetisers was dosed with
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