Food quality health reviews

Heaton, S. (2001). Organic Farming, Food Quality and Human Health. A review of the evidence, Soil Association, Bristol, Great Britain, 87 pp. 

On August 3, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). The new law required major changes in pesticide regulation and afforded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unprecedented opportunities to provide greater health and environmental protection, particularly for infants and children. The FQPA required the EPA to review the more than 9,700 tolerances established before August 3, 1996 (the... 

The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) requires the EPA to conduct a review of pesticides that pose the most danger to human health. The EPA must make sure the pesticides meet new safety standards specifically designed to protect children. 

Alasalvar, C., Shahidi, F., and Quantick, P. (2002). Food and health applications of marine nutraceuticals A review. In "Seafoods Quality, Technology, and Nutraceutical Applications", (C. Alasalvar and T. Taylor, Eds), pp. 175-204. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. 

Most studies intending to assess effects of production methods on food quality have done so by analysing the nutrient content and assuming that it would somehow be possible to translate these data into a ranking of effect on health. These studies, reviewed in detail by Woese et al. (1997), O Doherty Jensen et al. (2001), Bourn and Prescott (2002), Soil Association (2002), Williams (2002), BMVEL (2003) and Magkos et al. (2003), have shown systematic effects, which can be summarised as follows. 

Safety of food is a basic requirement of food quality. Food safety implies absence or acceptable and safe levels of contaminants, adulterants, naturally occurring toxins, or any other substance that may make food injurious to health on an acute or chronic basis. Most countries, therefore, have established official tolerance levels for chemical additives, residues, toxins, and contaminants in food products. Table 30.5 summarizes several CE reports that can be found in the literature that deal with the analysis of toxins, contaminants, pesticides, and residues. A number of reviews appearing... 

In addition to the association of natural antioxidants with food quality, these compounds have also been associated with health benefits. The association of the protective effects of fruits and vegetables in the diet against diseases, sueh as eaneer and cardiovascular disease, has been established for years. Comprehensive reviews on the consumption of fruits and vegetables with cancer rates have shown that 60-85% of the studies have a statistically significant association with the decrease of cancer... 

On the GM debate and biosafety research, a review of results performed under the European Commission supervision ( EC-sponsored Research on Safety of Genetically Modified Organisms , edited by C. Kessler and I. Economidis) is available also online at the EU-website http //europa.eu.int/ comm/research/quality-of-life/gmo/. An update on current research in food safety, nutrition and food-related disease might be found in the websites of the World Health Organization, http //www.who.int/fsf/GMfood/index.htm, and of the UK Food Standards Agency, http //www.foodstandards.gov.uk/. 

Whether the mentioned needs in our production systems can be met by organic agriculture is still unknown and under discussions. This article is a review of some of the current state of knowledge regarding ecological, environmental, food safety, human health and quality aspects of organic agriculture. 

Chapter 5 of the document reviews the UFs used by UK Government departments, agencies, and their advisory committees in human health risk assessment. Default values for UFs are provided in Table 3 in the UK document with the factors separated into four classes (1) animal-to-human factor, (2) human variability factor, (3) quality or quantity of data factor, and (4) severity of effect factor. The following chemical sectors are addressed food additives and contaminants, pesticides and biocides, air pollutants, drinking water contaminants, soil contaminants, consumer products and cosmetics, veterinary products, human medicines, medical devices, and industrial chemicals. 

New therapeutic products can be sold in Canada once they have successfully passed a review process to assess their safety, efficacy, and quality. Responsibility for this review process rests with Health Canada s Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB). 

Enforce Laws and Regulations That Protect Health and Ensure Safety. This service involves full enforcement of sanitary codes, especially in the food industry full protection of drinking water supplies enforcement of clean air standards timely follow-up of hazards, preventable injuries, and exposure-related diseases identified in occupational and community settings monitoring quality of medical services (e.g., laboratory, nursing homes, and home health care) and timely review of new pharmacologic, biologic, and medical device applications. 

This chapter sets out the role and importance of protein in human health, human protein requirements, and the measurement of food protein quality. Specifically, focus is given to the need to improve sorghum protein quality and the developments that have already taken place in this area are reviewed. Lastly, the improvements in sorghum protein quality achieved to date in the Biosorghum project are presented and on the basis of these data, the potential of biofortified sorghum to improve children s nutritional status is evaluated. 

The present chapter reviews the antioxidant activity of fruit and vegetable phenolics and its relationship with health and nutrition, as well as the effect of processing and postharvest technological treatments on these antioxidant metabolites, and on the nutritional quality of fruit and vegetable derived food products. 

---