2023-09-28 06:06:16
For the current market check, Greenpeace went to local supermarkets to search for the most popular pasta variant in Austria, spaghetti. The organic content was evaluated, with at least a quarter of the pasta variety of Italian origin meeting this criterion. However, only a minority of five out of 100 were able to meet the NGO’s definition of sustainable products.
“The best thing for the environment is organic Italian-style spaghetti without eggs. They are climate-friendly and pesticides such as glyphosate are banned here,” says Melanie Ebner, agriculture spokeswoman at Greenpeace. However, 95 percent of all pasta checked were missing one or more of three criteria for sustainability: According to Greenpeace, the best for the environment are organic Italian-style spaghetti without eggs.
The market check showed that around three quarters of the spaghetti on the shelves was traditionally made without eggs. Animal products have a greater impact on the climate, the environmental protection organization pointed out. “One kilogram of pasta has a carbon footprint of 0.8 kilograms of CO2 equivalents, while one kilogram of eggs has a carbon footprint of three kilograms of CO2 equivalents,” it said.
The herbicide glyphosate was also found on some pasta, a use not approved in Austria. However, the main ingredient, durum wheat semolina, in around 35 percent of spaghetti comes from Austria; the majority is imported from the EU, but also from non-EU countries such as Canada. Three organic products and 27 conventional spaghetti items from food retailers and the largest Austrian wholesale markets were tested. Something was detected in two of the conventional pasta, but with concentrations of 0.048 mg/kg and 0.032 glyphosate/kilogram spaghetti “and thus well below the very high EU limit for glyphosate in wheat of 10 mg glyphosate per kilogram, which is however considered too low was criticized.
(S E R V I C E – greenpeace.at/marktcheck)
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