The good news is that asbestos doesn’t naturally occur in food. Asbestos is a mineral found in nature, mostly in underground rock.
The bad news is that asbestos can contaminate food during preparation, depending on how it’s prepared.
So how can asbestos enter your food? And what can you do to avoid it?
How Can Asbestos Contaminate Food?
To understand how asbestos can enter food, it helps to first understand how the mineral is used.
Asbestos is relatively cheap to mine. Its properties include fire and heat resistance, flexibility and durability. For these reasons, many industries used asbestos for decades in everything from home insulation to cement products.
But asbestos was also used in a variety of home goods and appliances. Ovens, toasters and coffee makers built before 1980 may contain asbestos. Kitchenware like baking mats, oven mitts, pots and pans may also contain asbestos. Julia Child even had a recipe that called for baking bread on an asbestos floor tile.
If food is prepared with asbestos-containing products, it can be contaminated with the dangerous mineral. The amount of contamination may not be much, but no level of asbestos exposure is safe.
Asbestos in Foods
Before stricter asbestos regulations, processed foods and beverages sometimes contained asbestos. The filtration process used in producing certain items could contaminate them. Others were purposely coated in talc, which is commonly tainted with asbestos. Affected products included:
- Aspirin
- Beer
- Chewing gum
- Ketchup
- Lard
- Mayonnaise
- Meats
- Port
- Rice
- Sherry
- Soft drinks
- Vegetable oil
- Vermouth
Anyone exposed to asbestos in processed foods before the 1980s is still at risk of asbestos cancers. Symptoms can take 10 – 50 years to develop after exposure.
Asbestos in Drinking Water
Drinking water is another potential source of asbestos exposure. More than 630,000 miles of U.S. water pipes contain asbestos cement. As these pipes age, they deteriorate, risking more asbestos contamination in the water. Replacing these pipes is costly and dangerous but so is keeping them.
More research is needed to explore the health effects of asbestos contamination in drinking water. But again, no amount of asbestos is safe.
Why Is It Dangerous to Ingest Asbestos?
Once asbestos fibers enter your body, they can become lodged in the lining of your organs. The subsequent inflammation can lead to cancers like mesothelioma.
It is well documented that inhaling asbestos fibers causes pleural mesothelioma, which affects the lining around the lungs. But research also suggests a link between ingesting asbestos and gastrointestinal cancers. Asbestos exposure has been correlated with stomach, colon, esophageal and other cancers.
And scientists have documented the presence of asbestos in certain organs. Across a dozen studies, the colon had the highest concentrations of asbestos fibers. But asbestos turned up in other abdominal organs, too, including the kidneys and bladder.
So it’s a good idea for all of us to avoid ingesting asbestos in any form.
How to Protect Your Food From Asbestos
To reduce asbestos contamination risks, you may want to take stock of what’s in your kitchen. Consider replacing pre-1980 kitchenware and appliances with newer, asbestos-free options.
Also keep in mind that pre-1980s homes are likely to contain asbestos. If you live in one, make sure any materials that may contain asbestos are undamaged. They can release asbestos fibers into the air, posing inhalation risks. You can also take care to avoid preparing food in areas with damaged asbestos materials. If not, fibers could settle on food, too.
With all that in mind, stay safe and bon appétit!
