EU Regulatory Madness …New Rules Enacted To Regulate Color Of Bread, French Fries!

…EU enacts law to regulate the color of potato and grain-based foods with the aim of protecting public from high cooking temperatures

Too dark! EU now regulating bread color from baking at too high temperatures. Photo credit: Fritzs, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

The following should be a viewed as a shot across the bow concerning the extent and zeal to which the EU is capable of when it comes to regulation. Just imagine if they were given a free hand to regulate all things related to CO2 and climate change. It’s getting frightening.

I’ve gotten used to the high levels of regulation here in Europe, and it’s gotten tough to surprise me. Yet, EU bureaucrats never fail at finding new ways to do so.

Nanny state

The latest pertains to the color of bread. The most recent news on EU regulation is reported for example by the Austrian online Wochenblick here, which writes: “EU regulation: Effective immediately our bread is not allowed to be too dark”!

The risk, according to the EU, is acrylamide, a carcinogenic compound that can form on starchy food if the cooking temperature is too high (some studies suggest).

European nannies are afraid some people could get sick from eating overly dark bread.

Meanwhile, it’s business-as-usual for the obviously dangerous product sugar, whose consumption in Europe has reached dangerous levels with diabetes becoming an epidemic. But the days of unregulated sugar use may also be coming to an end. Regulating sugar would make sense.

Aim is to curb acrylamide from high temperature cooking

The dark-bread regulation went into effect last Wednesday, and appears to be a part of the regulation package to ban golden, crispy french fries as well.

Wochenblick reports that the regulation are for all products based on potatoes, grains, and also coffee. The EU intends to conduct food inspections in the future.

Regulating living down to the detail

The new highly intrusive regulations are the latest rules aimed at limiting coffee machines, restricting wood-burning stoves, vacuum cleaner power ratings, and lawn mower emissions, to name a few.

A Google search already shows that EU regulations for outdoor barbecues are likely in the works. Readers can look into that themselves to determine if that’s the case or not. Just imagine what that would look like.

The EU is only just getting started with all the regulation-mania.

More background here.

 

45 responses to “EU Regulatory Madness …New Rules Enacted To Regulate Color Of Bread, French Fries!”

  1. Paul Stevens

    Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy: In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

  2. tom0mason

    Acrylamide which humans have been consuming since they first cooked their food is adequately handled by a normal healthy humans. Quite literally you’ll piss it away. If you feed lab rat excessive amounts of it, guess what? They get sick with cancer. Not really surprising, eh?

    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide

    Acrylamide was discovered in foods in April 2002 by Eritrean scientist Eden Tareke in Sweden when she found the chemical in starchy foods, such as potato chips (potato crisps), French fries (chips), and bread that had been heated higher than 120 °C (248 °F) (production of acrylamide in the heating process was shown to be temperature-dependent). It was not found in food that had been boiled or in foods that were not heated.

    ….

    Acrylamide levels appear to rise as food is heated for longer periods of time. Although researchers are still unsure of the precise mechanisms by which acrylamide forms in foods, many believe it is a byproduct of the Maillard reaction. In fried or baked goods, acrylamide may be produced by the reaction between asparagine and reducing sugars (fructose, glucose, etc.) or reactive carbonyls at temperatures above 120 °C (248 °F).

    Later studies have found acrylamide in black olives, prunes, dried pears, and coffee.

    ….

    As of 2014 it is still not clear whether dietary acrylamide consumption affects people’s risk of developing cancer. Experimental results that are based on feeding acrylamide to animals might not be applicable to humans. Food industry workers exposed to twice the average level of acrylamide do not exhibit higher cancer rates.

    However it is known healthy humans have detoxifying enzyme systems:(from the same wiki )

    On the other hand, acrylamide and glycidamide can be detoxified via conjugation with glutathione to form acrylamide- and isomeric glycidamide-glutathione conjugates, subsequently metabolized to mercapturic acids and excreted in urine.

    With bureaucratic EU regulation generation, especially health and safety laws, incorrect thinking pervades, much to disadvantage ordinary citizens. This BIG bureaucracy believes it must keep all citizens utterly safe, mostly by restricting choice to only those items deemed safe. This happens regardless of such a restricted choice ensures your early demise. At least the EU bureaucrats have ensured you’ll be as healthy a corpse technically possible. 🙂

  3. Yonason (from a friend's comp)
    1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

      PS – This reminds me I haven’t had my coffee yet today.
      https://www.livescience.com/62177-california-coffee-cancer-warning.html

    2. Philip

      But who tucks them in , ties their shoes and wipes their arse, the Gov. better get busy! (SARC)

  4. Green Sand

    brown bread = dead!

    NN

  5. Ron Clutz

    As Yonason notes, this nonsense is rampant in California, where almost everything is assumed to cause cancer. It appears that chemophobia is a badge of honor among leftist politicians and officials, so of course essential in EU.

    How about a scary cup of coffee?
    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/7d/2b/5a7d2b112460590df004b557ccdbfd95.jpg

    “The reason: Proposition 65. It’s a California state law that requires businesses with 10 or more employees to provide reasonable warning about the use of any chemicals the state has decided could cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. One of these chemicals is acrylamide, which a rodent study pinned as a possible carcinogen. It’s found in almost everything that’s cooked at a high temperature. And because a particularly litigious law firm recently sued the state for not properly warning residents about acrylamide in coffee, California is now on the verge of requiring all coffee shops and manufacturers to include a warning on the beverage that it may cause cancer.”

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/in-california-everything-causes-cancer-so-labels-say/

  6. RCS

    This is the product of a bureaucracy without emocratic oversight.

    1. AndyG55

      “emocratic ” ????

      https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=emocratic

      Had to look it up, not sure how it applies in this case.

      But hey, great new word. Thanks 🙂

      1. RCS

        Sorry, it was a typo – I meant “Democratic”!

        1. AndyG55

          “Sorry, it was a typo – I meant “Democratic”!”

          yep, I realised that 🙂

          typos can sometimes be fun. 🙂

      2. Nigel S

        This is how we evolve by chance mutations.

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    […] NoTricksZone covers regulatory madness on the color of bread and fries in the EU […]

  8. John F. Hultquist

    Is it not true that in the USA, human life expectancy at birth has increased with the regular availability of potato fries?
    When I was a kid, we made them at home — so regular they were not.
    How many does a person have to eat until they cause cancer?
    Not serious about that.
    People differ. Education is better than regulation.

    1. yonason (from my cell phone)

      My mom drank coffee nearly every day of her 93 year adult life. I’m not going to worry about it. On the other hand, I will continue to worry about the Leftists trying to hijack my kitchen and my life.

      1. tom0mason

        My grandfather ate a toasted bacon sandwich wash down with 2 raw eggs most morning of his adult life, most evenings he would have at least 5 pints of strong stout.
        For years the doctors told him he had to cut down on the drink and high cholesterol foods or he would be seriously ill.
        Finally it got him and at the age of 86 he succumbed to a massive stroke when running for a bus. A short life for someone who survive a world war, being posted to the Far East, and Africa in the army, malaria, dengue fever, Spanish flu, and trench foot, then worked forty years as a contract construction worker. If only he didn’t smoke, he could have irritated us all for another 5 years maybe longer. 🙂

        1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

          “If only he didn’t smoke, he could have irritated us all for another 5 years maybe longer.” – tom0mason

          And maybe a LOT longer, since on that list of what he did it’s smoking that’s the worst, a known cause of heart disease and related problems. Impressive he lasted that long. Surviving the Spanish Flu alone is amazing.

          My Dad was at Guadalcanal in WWII, and he also contracted malaria. Nasty disease. He also smoked, though quit when in his 50’s. Always held down at least 2 jobs, and continuously busy around the home when he wasn’t working. I can’t hold a candle to him.

      2. tom0mason

        Another comment straight to the spam bin?

  9. Christopher Hanley

    Idiots, it looks like traditional German bread, I love pumpernickel.

    1. yonason (from my cell phone)

      The dark color of Pumpernickle bread is primarily from cocoa, coffee, and molasses, not the Maillard reaction.
      https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-pumpernickel-bread-recipe

  10. Graeme No.3

    The combination of regulations on CO2 emission and cooking temperatures would be enough to ban outdoor BBQs, also baking and brewing and wine making. Should they try that I foresee a revolution.

  11. tom0mason

    I must say Pierre how wonderfully civil the blog is today.
    I wonder why?

    1. John Brown

      I thinks she is busy else somewhere!

  12. AndyG55
  13. cementafriend

    Chris H looking at wiki it appears Pumpernickel in the traditional method is actually baked at very low temperature (around 120C)and has no crispy crust. I enjoy it for a change but normally I make my own bread – a crusty white mix for the breadmaker and add 80 grs of various seeds -pumpkin kernels,linseeds, sunflower, and/or Quinoa per 600 gr loaf. The seeds make the bread have a brown color, particularly the Linseeds and the dark Quinoa.
    The way that the EU is going will have more countries leave beside Britain. Looks like Hungary and and Italy might start the exodus leading to the collapse of the EU. Getting rid of Mutti (from the communist East) might help get a bit more democracy.

  14. Ivana

    why is the eurlex screenshot a distortion of the actual regulation you quote?
    the Commission regulation in your screenshot is COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 431/2014 (in force since 2014) on energy statistics, as regards the implementation of annual statistics on energy consumption in households.
    What does this regulation have to do with bread colour?

  15. RCS

    This falls into the category:
    “If you don’t smoke, drink (alcohol) and avoid fries, you won’t live longer, it will just seem that way!”

    1. tom0mason

      As the old Irish line goes —

      “Ah yes, he was the healthiest man I ever saw die of natural causes”

      and also
      https://cdn.quotesgram.com/small/75/32/136750906-528a257a74ea0dd3e8cf073142a9563f.jpg

  16. Ole Jack

    This isn’t about protecting people from bad food, this is about controlling every inch of peoples lives.
    Ole Jack

    1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

      Precisely!

  17. Penelope

    Actually,the cause of the diabetes epidemic is low thyroid. The TSH test used to regulate the amount of thyroid medication has been proved to be an invalid test. It measures only the amount of thyroid in the pituitary, not the amount in the rest of the body.

    Before TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was discovered, the amount of natural thyroid prescribed was based on symptomatic relief. Further, the artificial, all-T4 medications like Synthroid, were grandfathered in. This means they have never been tested for efficacy.

    There is no correlation between TSH and the body’s Basal Metabolic Rate. Read Dr. Mark Starr’s Hypothyroidism Type 2.

    Thyroid hormone regulates the activity of all organs including the pancreas and adrenals which are necessary for sugar regulation.

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