Seaweed Value Chain Stakeholder Perspectives for Food and Environmental Safety Hazards.

With a world population estimated at 10 billion people by 2050, the challenge to secure healthy and safe food is evident. Seaweed is a potential answer to this challenge. Expanding the use of seaweed in food systems requires an emphasis on safe practices to avoid adverse human health effects after consumption and irreversible damage to marine ecosystems. This study aims to evaluate relevant food safety and environmental safety hazards, monitoring measures, and mitigation strategies in the seaweed sector. For this study, a literature review, survey (n = 36), and interviews (n = 12) were conducted to identify hazards. The review and interviews aimed at pinpointing monitoring measures and mitigation strategies applied, while the survey revealed data gaps and further actions needed for the sector. Relevant food safety hazards include (inorganic) arsenic, iodine, and heavy metals, among others, such as pathogenic bacteria, while environmental hazards include environmental pathogens and parasites introduced into the ecosystem by domesticated seaweed, among others. Measures applied aim at preventing or mitigating hazards through good hygienic or manufacturing practices, food safety procedures or protocols, or pre-site farm selection. Although the future needs of the seaweed sector vary, for some, harmonized advice and protocols that align with a changing food system and hazard knowledge development as well as information on the benefits of seaweed and regulating climate and water quality may help.

Factors during Production of Cereal-Derived Feed That Influence Mycotoxin Contents.

Mycotoxins are naturally present in cereal-based feed materials; however, due to adverse effects on animal health, their presence in derived animal feed should be minimized. A systematic literature search was conducted to obtain an overview of all factors from harvest onwards influencing the presence and concentration of mycotoxins in cereal-based feeds. The feed production processes covered included the harvest time, post-harvest practices (drying, cleaning, storage), and processing (milling, mixing with mycotoxin binders, extrusion cooking, ensiling). Delayed harvest supports the production of multiple mycotoxins. The way feed materials are dried after harvest influences the concentration of mycotoxins therein. Applying fungicides on the feed materials after harvest as well as cleaning and sorting can lower the concentration of mycotoxins. During milling, mycotoxins might be redistributed in cereal feed materials and fractions thereof. It is important to know which parts of the cereals are used for feed production and whether or not mycotoxins predominantly accumulate in these fractions. For feed production, mostly the milling fractions with outer parts of cereals, such as bran and shorts, are used, in which mycotoxins concentrate during processing. Wet-milling of grains can lower the mycotoxin content in these parts of the grain. However, this is typically accompanied by translocation of mycotoxins to the liquid fractions, which might be added to by-products used as feed. Mycotoxin binders can be added during mixing of feed materials. Although binders do not remove mycotoxins from the feed, the mycotoxins become less bioavailable to the animal and, in the case of food-producing animals, to the consumer, lowering the adverse effects of mycotoxins. The effect of extruding cereal feed materials is dependent on several factors, but in principle, mycotoxin contents are decreased after extrusion cooking. The results on ensiling are not uniform; however, most of the data show that mycotoxin production is supported during ensiling when oxygen can enter this process. Overall, the results of the literature review suggest that factors preventing mycotoxin production have greater impact than factors lowering the mycotoxin contents already present in feed materials.

The use of adverse outcome pathways in the safety evaluation of food additives.

In the last decade, adverse outcome pathways have been introduced in the fields of toxicology and risk assessment of chemicals as pragmatic tools with broad application potential. While their use in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors has been well documented, their application in the food area remains largely unexplored. In this respect, an expert group of the International Life Sciences Institute Europe has recently explored the use of adverse outcome pathways in the safety evaluation of food additives. A key activity was the organization of a workshop, gathering delegates from the regulatory, industrial and academic areas, to discuss the potentials and challenges related to the application of adverse outcome pathways in the safety assessment of food additives. The present paper describes the outcome of this workshop followed by a number of critical considerations and perspectives defined by the International Life Sciences Institute Europe expert group.

Characterizing the coverage of critical effects relevant in the safety evaluation of food additives by AOPs.

There is considerable interest in adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) as a means of organizing biological and toxicological information to assist in data interpretation and method development. While several chemical sectors have shown considerable progress in applying this approach, this has not been the case in the food sector. In the present study, safety evaluation reports of food additives listed in Annex II of Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 of the European Union were screened to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize toxicity induced in laboratory animals. The resulting database was used to identify the critical adverse effects used for risk assessment and to investigate whether food additives share common AOPs. Analysis of the database revealed that often such scrutiny of AOPs was not possible or necessary. For 69% of the food additives, the report did not document any adverse effects in studies based on which the safety evaluation was performed. For the remaining 31% of the 326 investigated food additives, critical adverse effects and related points of departure for establishing health-based guidance values could be identified. These mainly involved effects on the liver, kidney, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system, central nervous system and reproductive system. AOPs are available for many of these apical endpoints, albeit to different degrees of maturity. For other adverse outcomes pertinent to food additives, including gastrointestinal irritation and corrosion, AOPs are lacking. Efforts should focus on developing AOPs for these particular endpoints.