Produce with Apeel stickers are already appearing in our local stores and people are flipping out online and across the country.
This spray does not wash of even with scrubbing. You will be eating it should you choose to purchase Apeel produce. The store signs read “Coated in Apeel to protect freshness and reduce plastic waste.”
The question becomes – Do you trust Appeal?
This is funded by Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum endorsed it.
There is no actual list of ingredients listed anywhere on the website www.apeel.com.
There is also this bizarre Instagram video where they happily exclaim “Everything we eat is chemical!” in a not-even-disguised attempt to convince you that coating your food in mystery chemicals is somehow normal and ok.
I did try and contact Apeel directly. Their contact form doesn’t actually work.
Thanks to an online comment made by a contributor I did come across this letter on the FDA’s website regarding Apeel. https://www.fda.gov/media/135999/download Appeal is Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). This Notice for a Mixture of Monoacylglycerides Derived from Grape Seed was sent on October 10, 2019.
Grape seed-derived. Ok, great! Sounds healthy and harmless enough.
But what is a Monoacylglyceride?
A quick lesson:
Monoglycerides and fatty acids enter absorptive cells in the small intestine through micelles; they leave micelles and recombine into chylomicrons, which then enter the bloodstream. Mono- and diglycerides contain trans-fat, which promotes inflammation in the body and has been associated with heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and obesity.
In 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration finally recognized the dangers of trans fat and began requiring manufacturers to list trans-fat on food labels.
They are stored inside the intestinal cells, and the monoglycerides and fatty acids reassemble themselves into triacylglycerols.
Additionally, I found the data safety sheet eng_apeel.pdf (evansvanodine.co.uk) – result? NOT SAFE. It is an environmental hazard to aquatic life. It is also marked for skin sensitivity and eye damage.
There is no healthful purpose to this. It is purely to boost profits for the companies who supply produce.
I am going to give this product a hard pass.
Author: Sarah Barendse
