Camellia oil formally considered food safe in the US?
Quick question,
I handle the FSQA role for a very large catering company. One of our clients wants to incorporate camellia oil (tea seed oil) into dishes served at their event. The question has been raised as to whether this is considered food safe.
I've long ago found that different levels of government (FDA vs state vs local health departments) have different opinions of the safety of different food additives, ingredients, etc, so I don't expect a definitive answer, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with camellia oil in food?
I know it has many uses in the cosmetics industries and as a substitute for mineral oil in other countries. In the US the alternative health crowd suggests its use in cooking and frying. A search through the FDA's GRAS database doesn't come up with anything.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Hi quinceleaf,
From a quick search around the net i also could not find any suggestions regarding this product being officially approved for food-related use in USA.. i also could not find any examples of Product Specifications for this commodity. However I did observe some claims for approval on advertising materials suggesting its use as a cooking oil.
I did find this 2013 technical article on the product whose 1st/last pages may be of some general interest -
Camellia,tea seed oil, a review.pdf 1.21MB 10 downloads
Great! Thank you, that article was very informative. I think it is ok to use in concept, we'll see when we source the product.
Thanks again
Thanks: I logged in to download this, but to allow others not to need to, here's the details of the PDF: Tea seed oil: Extraction, compositions, applications, functional and antioxidant properties / http://dx.doi.org/10.../ajmp.2012.0113 / Academia Journal of Medicinal Plants 1(4): 068-079, April 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.15413/ajmp.2012.0113
ABSTRACT
The beverage tea plant is mainly cultivated for its prolific vegetative growth. Tea plant produced large amounts of oil (30-32%) moreover; its seeds act as functional product with various applications. This oil is one of the important vegetable oils because of the high unsaturated fatty acids, especially essential linoleic acid and low content of saturated fat. The oil of tea seed also lower blood pressure and cholesterol level, and has functional effects against several degenerative pathologies, including cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Tea seed oil is a high quality cooking oil, like olive oil; it has an excellent storage quality due to a high content of polyphenols as antioxidant agents. Tea seed oil also is a good raw material for producing cocoa butter equivalent and margarine. Several studies have been developed on tea seed oil extraction, compositions, technical properties, and its application in food products which will be reviewed in this article.
Key words: Tea seed oil, Oil extraction, Compositions, Applications, Functional and antioxidant properties
Would the EU consider this a novel food?
That said, I don't know how the FDA would react, but the national authorities over here have been on a witch hunt for non-approved additives.If you use this oil for any anti-oxidant properties, they'll almost certainly class it as an additive that isn't allowed.
You should probably be careful if there is any sign of the FDA moving in the same direction.
This is an old thread so I'm not sure how useful it'll be to the OP, but as IFSQN results do pretty well in google rankings it might help someone else at some point...
I suspect that camellia essential oil could potentially fall under the GRAS list in 21CFR180.20. Confusingly the FDA lists it here as Thea sinensis, which is one of several recognised synonyms for the more widely recognised binomial, Camellia sinensis. See https://www.accessda...h.cfm?fr=182.20
Would the EU consider this a novel food?
I couldn't readily see it listed in the online novel foods catalogue, although it is far from exhaustive so that doesn't necessarily prove anything ;)
The purpose and manner of use is definitely going to have some bearing on this though, as for example use as a flavouring preparation could sit outside the Novel Foods regs.
I don't readily recall seeing any use in food applications on this side of the Atlantic, so the "consumed to a significant degree before 1997" criteria could prove an interesting challenge?