Environment. Fish, eggs, milk... These foods contain high levels of PFAS

Two out of three fish, 40% of eggs and a quarter of milk contain at least one of the four "eternal pollutants" (PFAS) covered by a regulatory limit in certain foodstuffs, claims Générations futures, which denounces "widespread contamination" of food.

The NGO highlights the difficulties encountered in gathering data since only a handful of these numerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS) must be controlled in food. It adds that "only eight countries have submitted data" to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for 2023.

In its study published Thursday, Générations futures analyzes data from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, countries lagging behind the first three and whose data, limited to certain foodstuffs, means that overall contamination is "underestimated."

Result: "69% of fish, 55% of offal, 55% of molluscs, 39% of eggs, 27% of crustaceans, 23% of milk and 14% of meat contain at least one of the four PFAS regulated" by the EU, which has established maximum levels for "only" four substances (PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA) in these products.

The NGO deplores the absence from this list of children's food, fruits, vegetables, cereals and dairy products and would like to expand the list of PFAS measured. It points out that PFAS used in industry , in herbicides such as flufenacet, widely used and recently banned in the EU, but also in food packaging and kitchen utensils, are likely to contaminate "the entire food chain".

"Food is identified (by EFSA) as the main source of exposure to PFAS for the population," but data on the PFAS content of foodstuffs is seriously lacking and the regulations are "outdated and inadequate to protect consumer health" since they only result in "very few" market withdrawals, according to Générations futures.

EFSA has established "the tolerable weekly intake for the sum of the four regulated PFAS at 4.4 ng/kg of body weight per week" but the regulatory limits "do not allow us to remain below this," the NGO continues.

A four-year-old child, eating an egg "at the compliance limit," would thus consume "140% of the tolerable amount" of PFAS for an entire week of food. "Consuming 500g of meat at the compliance limit corresponds to two and a half times the tolerable weekly amount for an adult weighing 60kg."