The EU and Danish governments are protecting consumers against…cinnamon!

Under the general heading of “Huh?” comes this story. It turns out that Danish bakers, when baking the classic Danish pastry treats “kanelsnegel” (cinnamon roll) and “kanelstang” (cinnamon twist) during the Christmas season violated a European Union rule against too much cinnamon. According to a widely printed Associated Press report, Danish cinnamon rolls too spicy for EU rules, “The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration recently discovered that Danish cinnamon rolls and twists contained more coumarin – a chemical compound in the most common variety of cinnamon – than EU rules allow. Excessive intake of coumarin can cause liver damage.”

So what is “excessive intake?” It’s 15 milligrams of coumarin per kilogram of pastry. According to the Danish baking industry spokesman, ““A grown man like me could eat like 10 ‘kanelsnegle’ every day for several years and not even get near the limit of what’s dangerous to my liver,” said Anders Grabow, a spokesman for the Danish Bakers’ Association. “I would probably get too much sugar in my body before that.”

What rankles even more is that the Swedish bakers have received a pass from this regulation: “The Danish bakers noted that their colleagues in neighboring Sweden can get away with more than three times as much coumarin in their cinnamon rolls because food authorities there classify them as “traditional and seasonal bakery” for which EU rules are less strict.”

So you’ve been warned – if you’re traveling in Europe and really craving a cinnamon bun – head for Sweden.