Mass catering should avoid serving soy-based foods due to the health risks associated with their consumption, recommended ANSES, the French food safety agency, yesterday.
This decision follows an agency assessment of the health risks associated with the consumption of foods containing isoflavones.
Soy is the main source of these molecules, which are known for their oestrogenic hormonal activity and can harm the reproductive system if consumed excessively.
ANSES has also called on food producers and manufacturers to review soy production and processing techniques to reduce isoflavone levels in food.
While protein source diversification is being championed in France and the EU to increase the sustainability of diets, this decision could set back the steps already made.
EU NGOs question the study
At the European level, this recommendation has provoked negative reactions from NGOs defending vegetarian diets, which question the study’s veracity.
Rafael Pinto, senior policy manager at the European Vegetarian Union, was quick to describe the decision as “defying the scientific consensus” and a “tactic to push consumers away from plant-based alternatives.” He called on the medical community to “debunk this fear.”
“We are surprised by the ANSES recommendation to exclude soy-based foods from catering despite their well-documented health and environmental benefits,” Anna-Lena Klapp, head of research at ProVeg International, told Euractiv.
Citing a 2020 study from the US public health agency qualifying soy as “safe food,” she aspires to see “large-scale meta-analyses that support [ANSES’] recommendation,” which contrasts national dietary guidelines in many countries.
“Soy-based foods have been safely consumed around the world for centuries”, Michela Bisonni, director of Plant Based Foods Europe, said to Euractiv.
For her, the decision was taken “without considering the full set of evidence (…) to conclude on a balanced risk-benefit approach.”
Klapp also denounced a difference in treatment between soy and meat by the agency.
“We are surprised that ANSES does not make a comparable recommendation for processed red meat. In 2015, the World Health Organisation classified processed meat as a carcinogen. ANSES has not made a recommendation to remove it from mass catering.”
No equivalent study at the EU level
The last evaluation of isoflavones by EFSA, the EU food safety watchdog, dates back 10 years.
Conducted at Germany’s request, the scientific opinion was “a generic assessment” focusing on isoflavones in food supplements for menopausal women and “limited in scope to the assessment of adverse effects on three target organs: the thyroid, uterus and breast,” an EFSA official told Euractiv.
The study identified no harmful effects of isoflavones in this context.
“Any new EFSA assessment would be launched on the basis of a request from our risk managers, the European Commission, the European Parliament or a member state”, EFSA representative added.
Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro contributed to the reporting.
[MM]
发表回复