
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
May 10, 2023
from
Mercola Website
Article also
HERE
PDF Version

Image extracted from
below
video...
Story at-a-glance
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Apeel is a plant-based protective coating that "helps
the produce you love stay fresh for longer." It retains
moisture within the produce and keeps oxygen out,
thereby slowing the spoilage rate
-
Apeel Sciences was founded with a $100,000 grant from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Other investors
include the Rockefeller Foundation; the World Bank
Group; Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of the personal
genomics company 23andMe; and Susan Wojcicki, former CEO
of YouTube
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Apeel Science's founder, James Rogers, Ph.D., is an
agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
He's hailed COVID lockdowns as a model for future action
on climate change. In other words, climate lockdowns.
Rogers is also a WEF Young Global Leader
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Avocados, cucumbers, lemons and limes, mandarins,
oranges, organic apples, grapefruit and mangos are
listed as produce that are currently being treated with
this coating. Apeel-treated produce can be identified by
looking for the "Apeel Protected" produce sticker
-
The
coating, which cannot be washed off, likely contains
toxic contaminants, including heavy metals and
carcinogens, as well as trans fats and, potentially,
harmful linoleic acid
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Do you know what 'Apeel' is?
In an April 24, 2023, Twitter thread, 1
Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director at the Organic Consumers
Association (OCA), lists the many patents associated with this
mysterious synthetic fruit coating, which is even approved for use
on produce certified as USDA Organic.
According to Apeel Sciences' website, 2 Apeel is a plant-based
protective coating that,
"helps the produce you love stay fresh for
longer."
It retains moisture within the produce and keeps oxygen
out, thereby slowing the spoilage rate.
Avocados, cucumbers, lemons and limes, mandarins, oranges, organic
apples, grapefruit and mangos are listed as produce that are
currently being treated with this coating.
Apeel-treated produce can be found in several large grocery chains
in the U.S., including,
Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Trader Joe's, Harps
Food and many others, 3,4
...as well as stores in,
Germany, Denmark,
Switzerland 5 and Canada. 6
As of October 2020, the company had also received
regulatory approval in,
Kenya, Uganda, Costa Rica, Colombia, and
Ecuador. 7
Apeel-treated produce can be identified by looking for
the following produce stickers.
Red Flags
One of the warning flags that makes me question the safety of this
product is the fact that Apeel Sciences (a DBA or "doing business
as" of aPEEL Technology Inc.) was founded with a $100,000 grant from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 8
That's never a good sign.
I
can't think of a single harmless product Gates has ever willingly
poured his money into.
Other investors include,
-
the Rockefeller Foundation 9
-
the World Bank
Group
-
Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of the personal genomics
company 23andMe
-
Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube
10 (she
stepped down in mid-February 2023) 11
By May 2021, Apeel Sciences was valued at
$1.1 billion. 12
Apeel
Science's founder, James Rogers, Ph.D.,
is an agenda contributor
to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
He's also a WEF
Young Global
Leader.
In 2018, Rogers stated his company would transition
to
using synthetic biology
rather than extracting its ingredients
from real food...
What's more, Apeel Science's founder, James Rogers, Ph.D., is an
agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum 13 (WEF).
Among the
articles he has written for the WEF is one in which he hailed
COVID
lockdowns as a model for future action on climate change.
14
In other
words,
climate lockdowns...!
Rogers is also a WEF Young Global Leader 15
- yet another red flag.
And I'm not the only one questioning the motives behind this
product.
"Is [Apeel] another Gates/WEF plot to destroy our health?
Or a distraction from worse plots?" Baden-Mayer asks. 16
Is Apeel Part of President Biden's
GMO Agenda?
One of the first things that came to mind when I heard of Apeel is
that it fits right into President
Biden's recently launched agenda
to turn the U.S. food supply over to the biotechnology industry.
I
reviewed this agenda in "Executive
Order Lays Foundation for Lab-Created Foods."
In summary, Biden's September 2022 "Executive Order on Advancing
Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable,
Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy" 17 makes biotechnology a
national priority across agencies and branches of government,
including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In late March 2023, Biden expanded on this premise in a "Bold Goals
for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing" report. 18
One of the
specific goals listed in this report is,
"Reducing food waste by 50%
by 2030."
Reducing food waste to combat "climate change"
19 is also the
premise upon which Apeel Sciences was founded, according to
its website. 20
Further evidence that Apeel Sciences fits into Biden's
biotech-driven food agenda is its acquisition of ImpactVision,
"a
software company that uses AI and machine learning to track the
chemical composition of food throughout its shelf life." 21
The
company has also promised to "double down on technology" through
other tech acquisitions.
While reducing food waste and making fresh produce last longer are
certainly sane and worthy goals, the question is,
how is this being
done?
Seeing how Apeel's emergence broadly coincides with Biden's
official transition into biotech-led foods,
can we trust that it's a
food-based product?
Or is it biotech in disguise?
What does Apeel's GRAS Notice Tell Us?
According to Apeel Sciences:
"Apeel adds a little extra peel on produce to slow the rate of water
loss and oxidation...
That extra peel is completely edible,
tasteless and safe to eat. A variety of plant feedstocks can be used
to create our formulations, and luckily these ingredients exist in
the peels, seeds and pulp of all fruits an vegetables ...
We
think of these materials as building blocks, restructuring them
in a way that allows us to iterate on what nature created,
making our solution into a coating that can be applied to
produce.
So while nature is our foundation and
inspiration, innovation and technology are how we apply these
ingredients ..."
Apeel Sciences' Generally Recognized as Safe
(GRAS) notice 22 to the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), submitted in October 2019, gives
us a little more.
The primary component of the coating is said to be
a mixture of monoacylglycerides derived from grapeseed.
An earlier GRAS Notice, 23 filed in April 2016, further specifies
that the two primary components of Apeel is,
-
2,3-dihydroxypropyl palmitate
-
1,3-dihydroxypropan-2-yl palmitate
(In this notice,
the product is called "Edipeel," but the website now refers to it as
"Apeel," like the company name.)
According to the 2016 GRAS Notice
No. 648:
"Monoacylglycerol derivatives are components of dietary fats
commonly found in food and are also endogenously formed in the human
body...
It is well established and recognized that monoacylglycerides, the subject of the present GRAS assessment, are
formed in the gastrointestinal tract from the generally accepted
metabolic pathway for the breakdown of triglycerides (i.e.,
lipolysis).
The hydrolysis of triglycerides by lipases proceeds through the
formation of monoacylglycerides (i.e., monoglycerides). The free
fatty acids released can be further used for triglyceride synthesis.
Given the metabolic sequel described above, and by
applying scientific procedures, it can be concluded that a
mixture of monoacylglycerides would not pose any health hazards
different from commonly consumed dietary oils derived from
plants or animals."
Toxic Residues
However, just because something is made from all-natural ingredients
doesn't mean the final product is perfectly safe. It depends on what
you've done to those ingredients.
In this case, in Part 3 of the 2019 GRAS notice, 24 under
Maximum
Limit of Residues, we find that the grape seed oil that makes up the
basis of this product contains residues of ethyl acetate, heptane
and palladium, which are processing aids, as well as the heavy
metals arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury.
According to Apeel, the levels of these toxic residues are either
below levels deemed safe by
the FDA, the EU and/or the Joint FAO/World
Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA).
The following table lists the maximum daily
exposure limits based on a maximum daily (90th
percentile) intake of 218 milligrams per person per day:

While the levels indeed appear to be very low, I would argue that
any exposure to toxic chemicals and metals is an unnecessary risk.
To me, intentionally coating fresh, unadulterated foods with
something that contains toxins, even if in minute amounts, only adds
to the toxic burden
We're already dealing with pesticide residues
on conventional fruits and vegetables. This coating will simply lock
those toxins in and add additional ones on top.
One of the biggest question marks is whether this coating can
penetrate the peel, as the coating cannot be washed off.
Can toxic
risks be eliminated by peeling the produce, or is the flesh of the
fruit or vegetable also contaminated with residues?
We do not have
the answer to that question, even though it's one of the most
important ones.
According to Apeel Sciences, the coating is "not expected" to
penetrate beyond the peel into the fruit. 25
Not expected...?
That means
they have no idea.
They're simply guessing...!
More Open Questions
In Apeel Sciences' 2019 GRAS notice, they referenced a 2017 EFSA
review 26 of E471 (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids) but didn't
mention that this review warned about the possible presence of
epichlorohydrin, 27 a carcinogen, in E471 manufactured using glycerol
or glycidol as a starting material.
Apeel uses monoglycerides of
glycerol.
According to this review,
"The panel considered that the presence of
epichlorohydrin and/or glycidol in mono- and di-glycerides of fatty
acids (E 471) would need further assessment as their presence could
raise a safety concern."
Palladium, cadmium and arsenic are also
carcinogenic, so there are at least four different carcinogenic
contaminants in this coating.
What's more, a 2021 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
re-review 28 of monoacylglycerides found that,
"the potential exposure
to toxic elements resulting from the consumption of E 471 could be
substantial."
As a result, the review panel suggests it may be
necessary to lower existing limits for arsenic, lead, cadmium and
mercury.
Video
also
HERE...
Apeel Plans to Switch to Synthetic
Biology
Baden-Mayer also wonders whether Apeel's coating is made with
synthetic biology.
Why else is Apeel Sciences listed as one of the
best-funded synbio companies? 29
Don't you have to produce synthetic
biology products to be considered a synbio company?
In 2018, the Apeel founder himself also told Food Navigator that his
company would soon transition to using synthetic biology rather than
extracting its ingredients from real food. 30
So, even if they
haven't made that transition yet, this certainly suggests they
intend to, eventually.
Apeel's GRAS notice also leaves this door open, stating that "monoacylglycerides
can be created by breaking down a triglyceride by removing two of
its fatty acids or they can be manufactured synthetically."
Finally, Apeel Sciences' board of directors includes Vijay Pande,
31,32 an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Stanford, who
also serves on the board of Scribe Therapeutics, a company
specializing in
CRISPR technology and protein engineering.
Pande is
also the founder of Globavir Biosciences, an infectious disease
start-up.
So, it certainly appears as though Apeel Sciences is geared up to
move into genetically engineered synthetic biology, if they haven't
made that leap already.
The company is even directly connected to a
company specializing in infectious disease therapeutics, and we now
know there are efforts underway,
to turn
foods into
vaccine vectors...!
Invisipeel - Another Type of
Coating
As mentioned earlier,
aPEEL Technology Inc. is producing the Apeel
coating for fresh produce under the business name Apeel Sciences.
But that's not aPEEL's only product.
In August 2015 - three years after the Gates Foundation launched
Apeel Sciences with a $100,000 grant - the Gates Foundation
committed nearly 10 times that amount, $985,161, to aPEEL Technology
Inc., not Apeel Sciences, to develop a crop coating:
33
"... to extend the shelf-life of crops
without refrigeration and protect them from being eaten by pests
by developing a molecular camouflage that uses cutin from
plant extracts to create an edible, ultrathin barrier on the
crop surfaces."
Cutin is a waxy polymer and a primary component of the plant
cuticle.
It covers all aerial surfaces of all plants. It's insoluble
and therefore has a waterproof quality. The Apeel product described
in the GRAS applications filed by Apeel Sciences do not mention
anything about cutin, so this is a different product.
According to Weston A. Price, 34 this product is called
Invisipeel,
and is applied by growers while the crop is still in the field.
Apeel is applied after harvest once the produce is ripe.
In short,
we may be eating food that has been coated not just once but
twice...!
Is Apeel just another Trans Fat
Alternative?
Aside from potentially toxic contaminants, others who have
investigated Apeel have highlighted other problems and warn that
monoglycerides and diglycerides are a,
"go-to replacement for deadly
trans fats." 35
In 2016, the FDA withdrew the GRAS status of trans fat as it was
strongly linked to fatal heart attacks.
Yet here we are again...
Out
with one toxic fat and in with another.
The FDA ban doesn't apply to
mono- and diglycerides, even though they contain trans fat, because
they're classified as emulsifiers rather than lipids.
Mono- and diglycerides are byproducts from the processing of oil. In
the case of Apeel, the monoacylglycerides are derived from grapeseed
oil, which is loaded with polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), including
the highly problematic linoleic acid, which I'm convinced is one of
the primary drivers of chronic disease.
You can learn more about
this in "How
Linoleic Acid Wrecks Your Health."
So, basically,
what we're looking at here is a way to turn fruits
and vegetables, known for their beneficial impacts on heart health,
into a source of harmful emulsifiers that increase your risk of
heart disease, heart attack and stroke...
This starts to feel even
more diabolical when you consider that the Great Resetters of the
world are pushing to replace meat and animal products with plant
foods, which they are simultaneously making more toxic and less
healthy.
Commonsense Ways to Make Produce
Last Longer
As noted by Moms Across America, there are far safer, natural ways
to extend the shelf life of your fruits and vegetables.
Below are a
few of their tips. 36
Additional suggestions can be found in Almanac.com's
fruit and vegetable storage guide.
37
"Take avocados for example...
Once you bring them home and they get
to their ‘sweet spot,' you can store them in the refrigerator for up
to two weeks. You can also freeze them whole, sliced, in chunks, or
mashed.
They will keep for three to six months.
Heavenly, succulent strawberries can be briefly soaked in a
vinegar and water solution to be cleaned thoroughly. Let them
dry completely, and store in a mason jar (with a paper towel at
the bottom) in the refrigerator for three weeks or more.
Sweet, colorful apples can be stored in a
cool, humid place such as a basement, garage, or refrigerator
for up to five months."
I have also found that if you purchase avocados on sale you can
select rock hard fruits and store them in the fridge for around one
month.
You only need to take them out of the fridge for around three
days before they ripen.
It's worth mentioning, in closing, that the best way to gauge the
freshness of a fruit or vegetable is to inspect it visually.
If it's
been sealed shut with a coating that delays the decay process, you
can't tell how long that produce has been sitting around.
What's more, if the produce is coated before it's ripe, will it ever
fully ripen?
Many fruits and vegetables are picked and shipped
before they're fully ripened. They ripen en route.
This is one of
the reasons why so many fruits are tasteless and don't have the
right texture.
Will Apeel make this situation better or worse?
Personally, I won't be buying Apeel-treated produce, and if enough
of us refuse to buy it, they'll stop using it.
Video
Video also
HERE...
Sources and References
1, 16 Twitter
Alexis Baden-Mayer April 24, 2023
2 Apeel.com
3, 12, 21 CNBC
May 11, 2021
4, 9, 25, 32, 36 Moms
Across America April 28, 2023
5, 7 Bloomberg
October 27, 2020 (Archived)
6 The
Western Journal April 20, 2023
8 ReFED
Catalytic Case Study
10 CNBC
August 18, 2021
11 ABC
News February 16, 2023
13 Weforum
James Rogers Agenda Contributor
14 Weforum
April 21, 2020
15 LinkedIn
James Rogers Founder CEO Apeel Sciences, WEF Young Global
Leader
17 White
House Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology September
12, 2022
18 Bold
Goals for US Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing March 2023
19 Apeel.com
Food Waste: The Not So Obvious Solution to Climate Woes
20 Apeel.com,
What Is Apeel?
22, 24 Apeel
Sciences GRAS Notice No. 886
23 Apeel
Sciences GRAS Notice No. 648
26 EFSA
November 10, 2017; 15(11): e05045
27 Hazardous
Substance Fact Sheet Epichlorohydrin
28 EFSA
Journal November 8, 2021; 19(11): e06885
29 BuiltIn
April 15, 2022
30 Food
Navigator February 12, 2018
31 Apeel
Sciences Board of Directors
33 Gates
Foundation Committed Grant to Apeel Technology Inc August
2015
34 Weston
A Price October 27, 2018
35 DrAxe.com
February 24, 2021
37 Almanac.com
Fruit and Vegetable Storage Guide
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