Is Linseed Oil Food-Safe? (Only These Brands Are)

Linseed oil is flaxseed oil. Some flaxseed oil is used in cooking or taken as a supplement (cold-pressed, regulated as a food).

But in this article we are looking at the food safety of linseed oil finishes and paints that are used in the home.

Some of those are food-safe (and Toy Safe), others are not.

This article contains affiliate links, upon purchase I earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Main Regulations To Identify Food-Contact-Safe Coatings

1. FDA Cleared Ingredients – Section 175.300 lists cleared ingredient materials for resinous and polymeric coatings (i.e. paints and coatings). This lists ingredients that are “intended for repeated food-contact use and is applied to any suitable substrate as a continuous film or enamel that serves as a functional barrier between the food and the substrate.”
   • Linseed Oil – Pure linseed oil is listed as cleared here.
   • “Resinous and polymeric coatings may be safely used as the food-contact surface of articles intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food…”
   • “The oils may be raw, heat-bodied, or blown. They may be refined by filtration, degumming, acid or alkali washing, bleaching, distillation, partial dehydration, partial polymerization, or solvent extraction, or modified by combination with maleic anhydride”.
2. Testing of final dried or cured product meeting government standards of 21 CFR 175.300 for migration (as opposed to looking at individual ingredients to see if they have clearance).
3. Substances Added to Food and GRAS Ingredients per FDA– “Generally Recognized as Safe” food substances per the FDA. This this does depend on how the ingredient is used, though this list can help support food safety claims of ingredients in coatings.
4. Toy Safe – For linseed oil products with metal driers or earth oxide pigments, EU Toy Safe EN:71 is a good regulation. It means it’s certified safe to be chewed on by a baby or child. They test for leaching (simulated in stomach acid) of toxic elements including aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium, boron, cadmium, Chromium (III), Chromium (VI), cobalt, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, strontium, tin, organic tin, and zinc. (source) (This does not mean they are 100% free of these elements, but their thresholds for what they allow in leaching are low).
5. Prop 65 Warning – This is California’s list of chemicals that are known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. Though a product can have a Prop 65 warning/chemical and still be considered food-contact-safe based on testing of the cured product to comply with 21 CFR 175.300.

Food Safe Linseed Oil Brands

1. Tried and True polymerized pure linseed – polymerized linseed oil is heat treated. This is just as pure and safe as raw linseed oil, but the heat treatment means it cures faster.

Tried and True has pure linseed oil, oil with beeswax, oil with pine rosin, and oil with pigments

They say: All Tried & True wood finishes comply with the product safety standards established by the FDA: “safe for food contact surfaces” (FDA 21, Sec 175.300).

Beeswax and natural varnish resin are FDA approved as non-allergic and non-hazardous, they say.

They recommend the oil with beeswax as the most durable for most food contact items.

2. Raw linseed oil – this is pure linseed oil, it takes longer to cure than polymerized linseed oil.

Nordicare – made in Denmark is Toy Safe (EN 71-3) and Food Safe (Eurofins 2021).

3. Rubio Monocoat – Rubio Monocoat’s two-part modified linseed oil and wax product Oil Plus 2C and their Universal Maintenance Oil are considered food contact safe (Eurofin).

They are also Toy Safe EN-71, which shows that the pigments are safe for mouth contact by kids.

Where You Can Use Food-Contact Safe Linseed Oil:

Tables, plates, bowls, wooden utensils, highchairs, cutting boards, toys, play sets, serving trays, display trays, butcher block countertops, charcuterie boards, cheese boards, pepper mills, rolling pins, spatulas, mortar and pestle, wooden coasters, chopsticks, skewers, salad servers, honey dippers, ladles, tongs, citrus reamers, sushi rice paddles, wooden beverage stirrers, baby spoons and forks, pizza peels, spice scoops, breadboards, breadbox.

Linseed Oil Product Ingredients That May Not Be Considered Food-Contact-Safe:

These ingredients are either not cleared individually, some trigger a Prop 65 warning, or could contribute to a product not being certified Toy Safe EN:71, yet some of them can certainly still be ingredients in food-contact-safe linseed oil-based products in the US based on extractive/migration testing of the fully cured film per 175.300 (FDA).

• Driers/siccatives like: manganese (could be safe depending on the level), cobalt, lead (lead is not used in linseed oil currently, but was used in the past), zirconium, 2-Ethylhexane acid.
• Curing agent/hardener: 1,6-diisocyanatohexane (HDI monomer), hexamethylene diisocyanate oligomers
• Biocides/preservatives like: isothiazolinones, zinc oxide (could be food safe), bronopol (could be food safe in some applications), iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (IPBC), DCOIT (4,5-dichloro-2-octyl-2H-isothiazol-3-one), zinc pyrithione.
• Solvents like: petroleum-derived solvents/isoaliphates, n-Butyl glycidyl ether, PMA / PGMEA: 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate, mineral spirits, toluene, benzene, naphtha.
• Anti-skinning: 2-butanone oxime.
• Other oils like: Alkyd resins, epoxidized soybean oil, oil modified urethane.
• Pigments in linseed oil paint or stains: aluminum, chromium, carbon black, cobalt, nickel.
• Other additives like: UV stabilizers / antioxidants.

Linseed Oil Not Considered Food Contact Safe

1. Most boiled linseed oil is not food safe.

Boiled linseed oil is not actually boiled, but is made with metallic driers often cobalt, manganese and zirconium.

There are some boiled linseed brands that claim to be food safe and toy safe though, like OLI-NATURA Boiled Linseed Oil. It is cobalt-free.

2. Mixes of linseed oil with other solvents, oils and driers may not be food safe as well.

Corinne Segura is an InterNACHI-certified Healthy Homes Inspector with certifications in Building Biology, Healthier Materials and Sustainable Buildings, and more. She has 10 years of experience helping others create healthy homes. You can book a consult here.