Chemical Food Safety

Abstract

Chemical food safety as an academic discipline deals with all aspects of chemical risks in food, which the World Health Organization introduces as follows: The contamination of food by chemical hazards is a worldwide public health concern and is a leading cause of trade problems internationally. Contamination may occur through environmental pollution of the air, water and soil, such as the case with toxic metals, PCBs and dioxins, or through the intentional use of various chemicals, such as pesticides, animal drugs and other agrochemicals. Food additives and contaminants resulting from food manufacturing and processing can also adversely affect health. Chemical food safety has a close relationship to nutrition science, which today has moved on from the clas- sical concepts of avoiding nutrient deficiencies and basic nutritional adequacy to the concept of ‘positive’ or ‘optimal’ nutrition. Thus, the research focus of nutrition science has shifted more to the identification of biologically active components in foods that have the potential to optimize physical and mental well-being and which may also reduce the risk of disease. This means that chemical food safety and nutrition science meet around the wide variety of chemical entities present in our food, no matter from which source it comes and no matter its history of production and preparation. This textbook focuses on the presentation of the subjects and facts necessary to work professionally with chemical food safety. Chemical risk occurs only if a toxic compound (poison, toxin, toxicant or noxious compound)1 is present. The fundamental science of poisons is called toxicology. Therefore, chemical food safety earlier most often was called food toxicology. Toxicology of course refers to toxicity, which – according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that has accepted a definition from the United Nations – is ‘the ability of a sub- stance to cause poisonous effects resulting in severe biological harm or death after exposure to, or contami- nation with, that substance’. 2 The reason to turn to OECD for a definition is that this international organization was the first to develop and launch guidelines for the testing of chemicals with regard to their toxicity. 3 For food toxicology one could rephrase the definition to become: ‘Food toxicology deals with substances found in food that might be harmful to those who consume sufficient quantities of the food containing such substances’. 4