RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Food-related health warnings have become increasingly frequent in recent years, to the point where maintaining a diet free of contaminants can seem almost impossible. So what’s the best way to limit your exposure, and will there ever be a way to fully remove these harmful pollutants from our blood? FRANCE 24 breaks it down in part 2 of our 2-part series.
Issued on: 28/07/2026 - 07:46 Modified: 28/07/2026 - 08:21
By: Cyrielle CABOT Cadmium, forever chemicals… these contaminants poison the food we eat. From the anxieties these chemicals breed in the public mind and the best practices to adopt to avoid the worst impacts to the small towns struggling to decontaminate their drinking water, FRANCE 24 has prepared a three-part series to break down these mounting food scandals. You can read part 1 here.
In the beginning, there were pesticides . Then came PFAS: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances quickly dubbed “forever chemicals” for their uncanny endurance in soil, water and living flesh. Most recently, it’s been cadmium .
Each time, health authorities issue variations of the same warning: all of these contaminants do us harm, and they are everywhere – even in our tap water .
While the most meaningful measures to fight against these contaminants are found in the realm of political action, there are still some things that individuals can do to reduce their risk. What foods should you avoid, and what should you be eating more of? FRANCE 24 draws together some of the best practices to follow to limit your exposure.
Along with tobacco , food is a main cause of cadmium poisoning, a vast study released by the France's National Food Safety Agency (ANSES) revealed in March. Being mindful about what exactly is on your plate is therefore an effective way to keep yourself safe from this heavy metal, which builds up in the liver and kidney and raises the risk of cancers and cardiovascular diseases.
But to do this, you need to look at two different factors: not just which ingredients are the most commonly contaminated, but also – most importantly – how often you’re eating them.
In 2012, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) analysed 144 food groups to measure their exposure to cadmium. That study remains one of the most detailed on the subject to date, and it created a list of the most highly contaminated foodstuffs.
Among them, seaweed, oilseeds such as sunflower seeds, mushrooms, animal organs, molluscs – especially oysters, mussels and clams – frog legs, dark chocolate and crustaceans all have cadmium concentrations in excess of 10 micrograms per kilogram, considered a high contamination threshold. The first step, it would seem, would be to limit consumption of these foods.
That being said, unless one is an avid consumer of frog legs and oysters, these foods make up a relatively small proportion of the population’s overall exposure – most people eat them only very occasionally, and then in small amounts.
Unfortunately, most contamination comes largely from products that many people eat every day – cereals such as pasta, bread or biscuits, as well as potatoes and certain vegetables. Despite the fact that the amount of cadmium found in these foods remains relatively low, they’re things that are consumed regularly in many populations – even multiple times a day.
Without going so far as to push for the removal of baguettes and bucatini pasta from menus, Pierre Souvet, a cardiologist, president of the French Health and Environment Association and the author of a guide on minimising cadmium intake, advises “varying your diet as much as possible”.
If you’re already eating pasta for lunch, “you can replace breakfast cereals or cakes and biscuits as an afternoon snack with fruit compote and yogurt”, he suggests. “And regularly choose dishes made with legumes instead of pasta.”
And to choose these alternatives wisely, you can opt for the least-contaminated foods: dairy products, eggs, citrus and other types of fruit and legumes such as beans and lentils.
He also advised varying where in the world you’re buying your food from.
"We know that cadmium levels in food depend in part on where the food comes from, because some soils are rich in cadmium," he explains. This is the case with chocolate from South America , for example, which is often more contaminated than its African counterpart.
Souvet had one final piece of advice for those wanting to limit their cadmium exposure: watch out for possible deficiencies in iron, zinc or calcium, which increase the body’s risk of absorbing the heavy metal. In this area, he said, women tend to be more at risk than men.
As with cadmium, food is the main way that the French, and likely many other, populations are exposed to certain forever chemicals – in particular, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the EFSA warns. Despite this, there has long been a dearth of information about just how present these harmful substances are in food.
In 2025, environmental NGO Générations Futures sought to change that by analysing the official data that was available on thousands of samples tested in France , Germany , Denmark and the Netherlands for substances from the broader PFAS family – PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFNA.
The results showed that 69 percent of fish, 55 percent of molluscs and animal organs, 39 percent of eggs, 27 percent of crustaceans, 23 percent of dairy products and 14 percent of meat were contaminated with at least one of the four regulated PFAS.
In France, where the data were limited to fish, animal organs and meat, contamination rates reached 88 percent, 56 percent and 35 percent, respectively. On the other hand, red meat and poultry (14 percent), vegetables (14 percent) and fruit (three percent) seemed to be the least affected.
Given these results, it might then be recommended to limit your consumption of freshwater fish, animal organs, molluscs, crustaceans and animal milk, instead seeking out fibre-rich foods like vegetables, fruit and l...
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