Pollution: Are colored olives unhealthy?

They are widespread in Mediterranean cuisine, as a snack or on pizza, they are also popular in this country.
Olives come in many colors.
The color of natural olives differs according to the degree of ripeness.
Green olives are picked when they are not ripe, dark olives hang longer on the olive tree.
But there are also those, the artificially colored, strikingly black olives, but they are often contaminated with pollutants.
The Stuttgart Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Office analyzed a total of 74 olive samples.
The result: There were high levels of the pollutant “acrylamide” in blackened olives. verifiable.
On average just under 300 micrograms per kilogram, in some cases even more than 1000 micrograms per kilogram.
Acrylamide is suspected of being carcinogenic.
The pollutant is created when olives are blackened under the influence of oxygen and then heated to make them durable.
Fortunately, they are easy to recognize: Since 2015, artificially colored olives are no longer allowed to be labeled as “black olives”. sold.
It must be clearly indicated that the olives are “blackened”. A look at the list of ingredients can also bring certainty that blackened olives contain the additives iron (II) gluconate and iron (II) lactate.