Unlimited Nitrate-rich Vegetables

The advice to limit the intake of nitrate-rich vegetables to twice a week and the advice not to combine nitrate-rich vegetables with fish are withdrawn by the Dutch Food Centre. So from now on there is no neet to pay attention to the amount of nitrate-rich vegetables eaten.

The restriction on nitrate-rich vegetables like spinach, lettuce and endive were taken as a precaution because nitrate can be converted in the body to nitrite which then can converted in potentially carcinogenic nitrosamines.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport asked the Netherlands Food and Consumers Safety Authority to investigate the safety of nitrate and nitrite. The outcome is used by the Dutch Food Centre to re-evaluate their advice.

Nitrate-rich vegetables

The data indicate that the consumption of nitrate-rich vegetables form a negligible risk to health. In addition, it appears that the positive effects of eating fruit and vegetablesfar outweigh the risks. Therefore the advice tolimit intake of nitrate-rich food is dropped.

Nitrate-rich vegetables en fish

Also the combination of nitrate-rich vegetable with fish turned out to be negligible. So this advice is also withdrawn.

Two recommendations remain:

–        Do not use water from private wells for bottle feeding.

Water from private wells can contane high concentrations of nitrate because nitrates used in agricultural fertilizers may leak into the ground and may contaminate well water. Using this water for bottle feeding increases the risk for methemoglobinemia in babies, also called blue-baby syndrome.

–        Do not use nitrate-rich (sport)supplements like red beet juice daily.

This advise is as a precaution because the nitrate of red beet juice adds to the already ingested amount of nitrate.

Deze post is ook beschikbaar in: Dutch