What if, without knowing it, you avoided a solvent from oil every day? This is the alert launched by the investigative journalist Guillaume Coudray. In his new book, Essence on our plates, investigates a well -oiled secret (La Découverte Éditions), it reveals the extent of a health scandal widely ignored by the general public. The presence of hexane in our diet.
Solvent from the petroleum industry
Little known outside of industrial environments, hexane is an oil -derived hydrocarbon. “It is a hydrocarbon fairly close to the White Spirit. The one used to clean the brushes after DIY”describes Guillaume Coudray to France Info. Used since the 1930s to dissolve fats, it makes it possible to extract a maximum of seed oil such as soy, rapeseed or sunflower.
But invisible and odorless, it is found without our knowledge, in the form of residues in everyday products: margarines, industrial cookies, infantile milks, protein bars, even certain supplements intended for pregnant women. However, nothing appears on the labels. Classified as “technological assistant”, hexane escapes any display obligation. “Hexane should have been prohibited 50 years ago”, is indignant Coudray, who fears a “General contamination of the population“.
Documented health risks
If European regulations say they supervise hexane residues, scientists highlight the risks linked to repeated exposure, even at low doses. According to the INRS, it can “cause dizziness, drowsiness, skin irritation and harm fertility“. A problem that Dr. Pierre Souvet, president of ASEF was already worried in our pages a year ago:
“”We have no study on humans to date, only on animals. But it comes out in rats fertility problems, embryotoxic consequences, which also pass the placenta and breast milk. “
The most worrying is its transformation by the liver: hexane then becomes 2.5-hexanedione, a molecule described by Coudray as “”one of the most powerful neurotoxic we know“”.
“We find it everywhere, except on the labels”
Despite this, hexane is everywhere, but the lines do not seem to move accordingly. In September 2024, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) expressed doubts about the current residue thresholds. But no ban.
Some elected officials go up to the niche, like the deputy Modem Richard Ramos which since April denounces the opacity that surrounds Hexane. This pleads for a tax on producers and a strengthening of regulatory supervision.
“Consumer safety is not ensured. It is found everywhere, except on labels”.
What alternatives then?
Faced with controversy, the European Federation of Vegetable Oil Industries ensures compliance. Biosourced and less harmful solvents are in development, but their adoption is still marginal.
EFSA calls for new in -depth studies in order to precisely assess the risks associated with exposure to Hexane, in particular via food.
In the meantime, Guillaume Coudray’s investigation is a burning question. Why does a solvent from oil, suspected of serious health effects, continues to invite himself on our plates, all without the consumer being informed?