Fact Check

By Reuters Fact Check

5 Min Read

Edible food coatings from U.S. company Apeel Sciences are made of monoglycerides and diglycerides that are not “toxic” to humans, contrary to posts on social media. According to an expert nutritionist, the quantities in these coatings would not pose a risk to human health. The company received funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but is not owned by Bill Gates, as also claimed online.

A tweet said: “DO NOT EAT ANYTHING WITH THIS LABEL!! This is a Bill Gates founded company using toxic mono & diglycerides to make you SICK!” alongside a photo of an avocado with an Apeel label (here). More examples can be seen (here) and (here).

Reuters has debunked posts conflating the edible food coating with a UK-manufactured cleaning product (here).

The product, Edipeel, is described as a way of prolonging the freshness of produce and as “an edible postharvest coating” (www.apeel.com/how-apeel-works), (here). Its ingredients can be seen (here).

Lauren Sweeney, vice president of marketing operations and commercial strategy at Apeel Sciences (here), said the coating is “perfectly safe and meant to be consumed as a part of the extra protective layer on your favorite fruits and vegetables.”

“Apeel contains mono- and diglycerides, which are the same compounds found in olive oil and coconut oil,” she said. “Apeel’s plant-based protective coating is made of materials that naturally exist in the peels, seeds, and pulp of fruits and vegetables that we commonly consume.”

Sweeney said the safety of these compounds have been verified by regulatory authorities including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Canada and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Monoglycerides and diglycerides fall into the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) category for the FDA (here). GRAS is defined by the FDA as a designation where: “the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use” (here), (here).

A search for Apeel Sciences on the FDA’s GRAS page (tinyurl.com/yxfsa8nw) shows the company submitted a notice saying the intended use of monoglycerides and diglycerides in Edipeel is GRAS (here).

Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said monoglycerides and diglycerides are not toxic or concerning.

“These are just partially digested fat that we get from our diet or that our body makes from carbohydrates or protein,” he said. “Our body makes these in large amounts as part of normal digestion.”

The monoglycerides and diglycerides in Edipeel are like adding a thin layer of fat, he said, and would not have negative health impacts when used in this way. “Apeel says they use natural plant sources, which should be ok, and the amounts they are using would be small anyway,” Willett said in an email.

Contrary to some posts online, Bill Gates is not the founder of Apeel Sciences, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) spokesperson said, and the Foundation’s 2012 and 2015 grants to Apeel Sciences of $99,995 and $985,161, respectively (here), (here), have concluded.

Apeel’s representative Sweeney also said the BMGF is no longer an active investor in the company.

Misleading. The edible food coating known as Apeel is made of monoglycerides and diglycerides, compounds that are generally recognized as safe by the FDA and a nutritional expert in the quantities proposed by the company.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts (here).

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.