EATING AWAY CLIMATE
EATING AWAY CLIMATE CHANGE? Novel food — from safety checks to grocery shelves Antarctic Krill oil, protein extract from pig kidneys, magnolia bark extract and the mung bean. All these and many others are on a list of approved novel foods for sale on the European market. By NIKOLAJ NIELSEN The last on that list, the mung bean, is a base ingredient for plantmade eggs produced by US firm Eat Just. In 2020, Eat Just submitted an application to get mung bean listed as an EU novel food. Two years later it was approved. Before mung bean got the European Commission’s stamp of approval, it first had to go through a scientific review. That review is carried out by the Italian-based agency, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). “The team that is working on this has grown considerably,” confirmed EFSA spokesperson, Edward Bray. The EFSA has received some 200 applications for novel foods since the EU introduced new rules in 2018. “That’s more than we received in the whole period from our foundation in 2002 up to this date,” adds Bray. This scientific review can take up to nine months. In some cases, it may take longer. But Bray said that is usually because of missing data from the companies. The EU says a ‘novel food’ is food that has not been consumed to a significant degree by humans in the EU before 15 May 1997 Source: European Parliament 19
