Dioxin: Do without breakfast egg?
Why is dioxin so dangerous?
Dioxin is in urgent suspicion of being carcinogenic. We inevitably ingest tiny amounts of dioxin through food, especially when we eat animal products such as eggs, meat or dairy products. The substance accumulates in the adipose tissue - and there it may remain for a very long time. According to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, however, significantly less dioxin is found in the environment today than it was 20 years ago.
Many reports say that dioxin can cause skin and respiratory problems. While this is true, it can not happen if we ingest dioxin via food. Rather, such complaints can occur when we are exposed to dioxin through the air or through the skin - the substance is also released during combustion processes.
Should I prefer to do without my breakfast egg?
Acute health hazard is a dioxin-contaminated breakfast egg not, as all experts agree. Nevertheless, we should take as little dioxin as possible because the substance can stay in the body for a very long time. And since the dioxin burden can unfortunately only be detected with the help of complex analyzes in the laboratory, one does not see an egg, whether dioxin is in it or not.
Even if you can not poison yourself with a dioxin-loaded breakfast egg, the thought of it can spoil your appetite.
Does the scandal also affect organic eggs?
The federal states are currently still to clarify on which farms chickens have picked the contaminated feed. As a precaution, companies have been banned: they now have to prove that their products are harmless. Only then may they deliver again.
According to information from the federation ecological food economy (BÖLW) is no bio enterprise under the locked farms. In any case, it is not allowed in organic farming to use animal feed containing conventional vegetable oils.
Although dioxin-contaminated feed can not be used on organic farms, dioxin levels can even be exceeded in organic eggs: dioxin is also found in the environment, for example in the soil, and can enter the food chain from there ,
Where were the dioxin-contaminated eggs delivered?
It is not yet possible to say exactly in which federal states or supermarket chains dioxin eggs have entered the market.
The Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Consumer Protection and Regional Development has since called the producer codes of eggs that could be contaminated with dioxin.
The Authority does not advise the consumption of eggs with the following numbers:
2-DE-0355461 3-DE-0312141 2-DE-0312142 2-DE-0312151
The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Environment warns against eggs with these numbers:
2-DE-0513912 3-DE-0514411 (only brown eggs, white are not loaded)
The Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety has set up a hotline where consumers can obtain information: 0441/57026 - 333.
How does the dioxin get into the eggs?
About contaminated feed: The chickens eat dioxin-contaminated feed and thereby absorb the poison. The dioxin accumulates in the fatty tissue: in the hen's egg in the high-fat yolk.
Dioxin was currently used in animal feed because dioxin-contaminated waste from biodiesel production was processed into animal feed.
Is poultry meat also affected by the dioxin scandal?
The more fatty a product, the greater the amount of dioxin can accumulate in it. Egg yolk consists of one-third fat, which is why a particularly high concentration is achieved here - higher than in egg whites or in low-fat poultry meat.
