Bad news for decaffeinated coffee lovers in the USA. The “light” version of the energizing drink it may contain a chemical that can cause cancer. This is the methyl chloride, a solvent used by roasters to extract caffeine from coffee beans. Now, health and environmental activists are pushing for the food use of this substance to be banned.
A shadow on the cup
Methylene chloride is a volatile organic compound with a wide range of industrial applications. In addition to decaffeinated coffee, it is used as a solvent in various manufacturing and commercial processes. The US federal government banned its use as a paint stripper in 2019. It is now considering banning it almost completely, both for consumers and industry, except in limited contexts.
The reason for such caution? It is in the potential harmful effects of methylene chloride on human health. Some studies have shown that short-term exposure to this substance can damage the central nervous system. Prolonged exposure can instead induce liver and lung tumors, as well as cause liver damage in general.
A regulatory knot
Despite the above risks, there are no bans on the use of methylene chloride for food production, especially to obtain decaffeinated coffee. A choice that raises more than a few doubts.
The rules, activists complain, are obsolete. And it is not clear why the use of this substance continues to be allowed, given that safer processes exist and are already used to decaffeinate coffee.
Currently, US regulations allow the use of methylene chloride as a solvent to remove caffeine from coffee beans, as long as the chemical does not exceed 10 parts per million (0,001%) in decaffeinated roasted coffee and in soluble decaffeinated coffee extract (instant coffee). In Europe methylene chloride is banned both for marketing and for the production of decaffeinated coffee, but there is still a limit of 2 parts per million which leaves me perplexed.
Not just decaffeinated: in the USA a wider trend
The case of methylene chloride decaffeinated coffee is but the latest piece of a much larger and more worrying mosaic: that of an increasingly adrift American food system. From supermarket shelves full of ultra-processed foods, often devoid of real nutritional value, to the menus of large fast food chains, proper “food swamps” (a worrying phenomenon also in Europe), food seems to have lost its primary function of nourishment to become a mere vehicle of chemical substances, fats and excess sugars.
An alarming trend, which is contributing to the increase in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases in the US population. And which requires a radical rethinking of food policies, starting from greater transparency on production processes and more stringent regulation of additives and chemical residues in foods.
If the path instead becomes that of clinging to (guiltily) expensive monthly syringes of semaglutide, then, everything gets complicated.
Decaffeinated coffee, safer alternatives
Alternative methods that do not require the use of methylene chloride include the use of carbon dioxide as a solvent to extract caffeine and the Swiss Water process. It involves soaking the grains in hot water and using organic solvents instead of chloroform.
For those like me who still want to drink decaffeinated coffee, the advice (regardless of nations and prohibitions) is to opt for beans labeled as having been treated with this process. How much do they cost? I won't open this chapter (healthier food for the rich, poisons for the other "strata" of the population) but we'll talk about it again.
Because the pleasure of food, starting with a good coffee, decaffeinated or not, should never leave a bitter aftertaste like that of doubt.
