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Food has nutritional and non-nutritional components. The latter are not well-studied despite the fact that food adulteration has been common. Food adulteration may have reached its peak in cities of Western Europe and the US in the 18th and 19th centuries when foods were often purposely contaminated with additives to increase bulk, attractiveness, disguise spoilage, and increase profit. Effective regulation of food began in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Nevertheless, today food recalls for bacterial contamination are common, while pesticides and compounds from manufacturing are detected in many foods. Foods with strong reputations for healthiness, such as salmon, may have sizable contaminant contents. The contaminant content of many foods varies by origin and season. Nearly all commercially raised salmon has higher contaminant levels than wild caught salmon. Opting out of the commercial food distribution system is an option, but the value depends on the habitat in which the food is obtained. Traditionally, the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation has depended on local fish and wildlife for their diet. Now pollution of local waterways has led to the contamination of many local foods, and levels of the contaminant polychlorinated biphenyls in the Akwesasne Mohawk people reflect current or past dietary patterns. Many other communities in nonurban settings are exposed to contaminants through long-trail distribution of contaminants in food, air, and/or water. Human biologists considering nutrition, disease, growth, reproduction, aging, to name a few areas, may consider the non-nutritional components of food as many have the ability to alter physiological functioning., (Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

The primary role of the extensive and complex modern food legislation is to protect the consumer. Providing a framework for industry and enabling free trade are secondary aims. In the EU the 2006 Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods was adopted in December 2006. This Regulation defines detailed lists of permitted claims with precise conditions, requires foods making claims to meet specific nutrient profiles and requires the submission of a dossier for approval of new health claims. Nutrient profiles and an initial list of existing health claims will not be agreed until January 2009 and January 2010 respectively. The uncertainty about profiles and the initial list of claims as well as the prescriptive nature of the Regulation will have a major impact, some negative but some positive, on food innovation. Worldwide legislation on nutrition and health claims continues to develop. The current paper also provides an outline of some other key pieces of European legislation that affect food innovation. However, currently, all this legislation remains in development and up-to-date information can be sought from the reference material provided.

Trichothecene mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of Fusarium moulds that routinely infect cereal crops. Processing can reduce, but not eliminate, trichothecenes from cereal-based foods, and the potential presence of the trichothecenes in cereal foods poses a significant health risk to consumers. Deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin, DON) is the most common of the trichothecenes detected in cereal crops and is subject to government regulation in many countries. Sensitive (ng/g) methods for the detection of trichothecenes in cereal grains and food products are needed to protect consumers, to provide data for dietary exposure estimates, and to support research into the control of moulds and subsequent toxin production. Laboratories require simple, rugged and reliable methods for routine testing, with unequivocal identification of suspect mycotoxins. A method employing gas chromatography-negative ion chemical ionisation/mass spectrometry (GC-NICI/MS) has been developed and used for the routine determination of eight of the most significant trichothecenes in a variety of commodities. This chapter discusses GC, liquid chromatographic (LC) and supercritical fluid chromatographic methods that are currently used for the analysis of trichothecene mycotoxins.

The present situation regarding Listeria monocytogenes and ready-to-eat (RTE) seafood is discussed. An updated regulatory policy on L. monocytogenes directs inspection and compliance action to those RTE foods capable of supporting growth of the organism and is based on a combination of inspection, environmental sampling and product testing. The incidence of L. monocytogenes in imported seafood products in 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 was 0.88 and 0.3%, respectively. With respect to domestic products, an analysis of 347 RTE foods in 1997-1998 and 1998-1999, at one of the large fish inspection labs in the Maritimes, revealed an absence of L. monocytogenes. The only seafood product linked to suspect cases of listeriosis in Canada was imported.

The custom of displaying Chinese-style barbecued meats at room temperature has been a controversial food safety issue in North America. This article is intended to facilitate development of a risk-based food safety policy for this unique food by providing a brief overview of the recent study findings and Canadian disease surveillance data. Despite the lack of temperature control after cooking, Chinese barbecued meats were rarely implicated in foodborne incidents in Canada between 1975 and 1993. This might be due to the food's ability to delay pathogen growth during the first 5 hours immediately after cooking, and the conventional trade practices of separating the retail area from the main kitchen (i.e., reducing risk of cross-contamination). However, recent studies also pointed out the high potential for cross-contamination during the retail stage (i.e., chopping and packaging the food) as a result of lack of proper hand-washing and equipment sanitation. A risk-based food safety policy is proposed.

The Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada (FTA) went into effect January 1, 1989. To implement certain provisions of the agreement on technical regulations and standards, the United States Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine, Health and Welfare Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs, and Agriculture Canada established the Working Group on Veterinary Drug Tolerances. The progress of the working group and its continuing efforts to harmonize tolerances for approximately 15 veterinary drugs are discussed. This paper proposes use of the toxicologically determined acceptable daily intake (ADI) for the drug as the safety standard for reaching conclusions on the acceptability of residues in meat for human consumption. Specifically, the "equivalence" of different MRLs for the same veterinary drug would be determined by considering whether they are likely to result in dietary residues that exceed the other country's ADI for the drug. Estimates are made for the veterinary drugs lasalocid, fenbendazole, morantel tartrate, halofuginone, and tilmicosin. Based on these estimates, the U.S. and Canadian MRLs for each drug would be considered equivalent for trade purposes.

Sixty samples of commercial North American legume inoculants manufactured for sale in 1994 using nonsterile peat as carrier were tested for Rhizobium (or Bradyrhizobium) content and non-Rhizobium biological contaminant load. Products of three major producers of such inoculants for sale in Canada were examined. Viable Rhizobium content varied from 5.6 x 10(5) to 8.1 x 10(9) cells/g, while the contaminant load varied from 1.8 x 10(8) to 5.5 x 10(10) cfu/g. Most of the inoculants contained more nonrhizobial organisms than they did rhizobia. Identifications were made of the most numerous nonrhizobial bacteria occurring in 100 samples of inoculants collected in 1993 and 1994. The most commonly identified contaminant was Xanthomonas maltophilia. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Enterobacter cloacae were also found at high levels in some products. Contaminant organisms capable of inhibiting rhizobial growth in plate culture were found in the products of all three manufacturers.