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Ultraprocessed foods can be a source of potassium additives. Excess potassium consumption can lead to hyperkalemia. How frequently potassium additives are found in the food supply and how they impact potassium content is not well documented. Using the Branded Product Database, ingredient lists were searched for "potassium" to identify products containing additives. For products listing potassium content, accuracy of potassium content reporting and how potassium content differed with additive use was also assessed. A total of 239,089 products were included, 35,102 (14.7%) contained potassium additives, and 13,685 (5.7%) provided potassium content. Potassium additives were most commonly found in dairy products, supplements, and mixed foods (at 37%, 34%, and 28%, respectively). Potassium additives in mixed foods and vegetables and fruits were associated with 71% and 28% more potassium per serving, respectively (p < 0.01). Potassium content increased by 1874 mg (66%) when a 1-day sample menu compared foods with and without additives. Potassium content of foods with and without additives is not well documented. Potassium additives are prevalent and can be associated with increased potassium content. However, more information is needed to better understand how different additives used in different foods change potassium content., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Dietary phosphorus intake in the USA has been consistently greater than the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) with several studies reporting associations between intake and health risks as well as all-cause mortality within healthy subjects and patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The current study utilized a novel approach to calculate added phosphorus content in foods to determine sources (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, NHANES 2001-2016, n = 39,796) and trends in consumption (NHANES 1988-1994, 2001-2016, n = 55,744) of total, naturally occurring, and added phosphorus. Among adults (19+ years), the mean intake of total and natural phosphorus (mg/day) in 1988-1994 as compared with 2015-2016 increased (total: 1292 ± SE 11 vs. 1398 ± SE 17; natural: 1113 ± SE 10 vs. 1243 ± SE 16 mg/day); in contrast, added phosphorus intake decreased during this time (178 ± SE 2.9 vs. 155 ± SE 4.1 mg/day). Added phosphorus as a percent of total ranged from about 14.6% in 1988-1994 to about 11.6% in 2015-2016. The top five sources of total and naturally occurring phosphorus, representing approximately 20% of intake, were cheese, pizza, chicken (whole pieces), reduced-fat milk, and eggs/omelets. The top five sources of added phosphorus were cheese, soft drinks, cakes/pies, rolls/buns, and cookies/brownies, representing 45% of added phosphorus in the diet. Consumption of added phosphorus has decreased over the past few decades, possibly due to increased demand for foods with less additives/ingredients but may also be due to inaccurate phosphorus values in nutrition databases. Further studies are needed to validate the added phosphorus calculations utilized in this study and nutrition databases should consider providing added phosphorus content.

Consumers nowadays are playing an active role in their health-care. A special case is the increasing number of women, who are reluctant to use exogenous hormone therapy for the treatment of menopausal symptoms and are looking for complementary therapies. However, food supplements are not clearly regulated in Europe. The EFSA has only recently begun to address the issues of botanical safety and purity regulation, leading to a variability of content, standardization, dosage, and purity of available products. In this study, isoflavones (puerarin, daidzin, genistin, daidzein, glycitein, genistein, formononetin, prunetin, and biochanin A) from food supplements (n = 15) for menopausal symptoms relief are evaluated and compared with the labelled information. Only four supplements complied with the recommendations made by the EC on the tolerable thresholds. The intestinal bioavailability of these compounds was investigated using Caco-2 cells. The apparent permeability coefficients of the selected isoflavonoids across the Caco-2 cells were affected by the isoflavone concentration and product matrix.

This paper argues that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to require a declaration of "added sugars" on the nutrition label. FDA has relied on scientific evidence from well-respected sources that concluded that "added sugars" pose a public health concern for Americans; its rule is not arbitrary or capricious. At the same time, there are certain limits on the effectiveness of the "added sugars" rule, especially consumer comprehension. Therefore, FDA should consider more effective front-of-package labeling to clearly communicate the public health risks of "added sugars".

Importance: Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance allows food manufacturers to determine whether additives to food are "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). Manufacturers are not required to notify the FDA of a GRAS determination, although in some instances they notify the agency. The individuals that companies select to make these determinations may have financial conflicts of interest., Objective: To determine the extent to which individuals selected by manufacturers to make GRAS determinations have conflicts of interest between their obligations to ensure that the use of the additive is safe and their financial relationships to the company. DESIGN Using conflict of interest criteria developed by a committee of the Institute of Medicine, we analyzed 451 GRAS notifications that were voluntarily submitted to the FDA between 1997 and 2012., Main Outcomes and Measures: Number of GRAS notices submitted to the FDA; frequency of various types of relationships between decision maker and additive manufacturer; frequency of participation on GRAS panels by individuals; and number of GRAS safety determinations identified by the FDA that were not submitted to the agency., Results: For the 451 GRAS notifications, 22.4% of the safety assessments were made by an employee of an additive manufacturer, 13.3% by an employee of a consulting firm selected by the manufacturer, and 64.3% by an expert panel selected by either a consulting firm or the manufacturer. A standing expert panel selected by a third party made none of these safety assessments. The 290 panels that made GRAS determinations had an average of 3.5 members, with a maximum of 7. Ten individuals served on 27 or more panels; 1 individual served on 128 panels (44.1%). At least 1 of the 10 individuals with the most frequent service was a member of 225 panels (77.6%)., Conclusions and Relevance: Between 1997 and 2012, financial conflicts of interest were ubiquitous in determinations that an additive to food was GRAS. The lack of independent review in GRAS determinations raises concerns about the integrity of the process and whether it ensures the safety of the food supply, particularly in instances where the manufacturer does not notify the FDA of the determination. The FDA should address these concerns.

Objectives: We attempted to answer the following questions: Why has the body mass index (BMI) increased so dramatically in the last 35 years? Are some food groups or additives more responsible than others?, Methods: Data for per capita food production available for consumption after spoilage for different food groups and additives from the US Department of Agriculture were used as independent variables to predict BMI increases. The heights and weights were taken from the Centers for Disease Control and the US Census Bureau for the years 1970 to 2004., Results: The additives of fats and sugars in combination, not separately, best predicted increases in BMI accounting for 97% of the variance in the linear regression analyses. When all food groups were entered into regressions to predict increases in BMI, fats and sugars in combination accounted for 96% of the variance for women and 97% for men, with the other food groups adding very little. Path analyses showed that fat and sweeteners had direct effects on BMI and were also the mediators of increased caloric consumption., Conclusions: In line with the major physiological theories emphasizing palatability as the addictive stimulus in models of incentives and addiction, fats and sugars in combination rather than calories per se or particular food groups accounted for the increases in BMI. These empirically based theories and data suggest that one should focus on palatability and addictive models in dealing with the increasing problem of obesity in the United States.

It now is possible to detect many substances in the parts per trillion and further advances will allow for even lower levels of detection. Many of these substances may always have been present in the food supply, but escaped detection. Others may have been introduced through environmental contamination, changes in food processing, sourcing of ingredients from different manufacturers or countries, and a myriad of other reasons. The adulteration and various safety provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), principles of statutory construction, and case law, provide FDA with the legal authority to adopt the threshold concept. FDA and the courts have long recognized it is possible to establish safe levels of poisonous or deleterious substances found in foods. FDA routinely conducts such an analysis under the general adulteration provisions of the FDCA and has identified safe levels for numerous environmental contaminants found in food. The courts have recognized that through its exercise of enforcement discretion, FDA has the legal authority to establish non-binding defect action levels for contaminants. FDA similarly could implement the Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) through its exercise of enforcement discretion.

Considerable advances have been made over the past century in the understanding of the chemical hazards in food and ways for assessing and managing these risks. At the turn of the 20th century, many Americans were exposed to foods adulterated with toxic compounds. In the 1920s the increasing use of insecticides led to concerns of chronic ingestion of heavy metals such as lead and arsenic from residues remaining on crops. By the 1930s, a variety of agrochemicals were commonly used, and food additives were becoming common in processed foods. During the 1940s and 1950s advances were made in toxicology, and more systematic approaches were adopted for evaluating the safety of chemical contaminants in food. Modern gas chromatography and liquid chromatography, both invented in the 1950s and 1960s, were responsible for progress in detecting, quantifying, and assessing the risk of food contaminants and adulterants. In recent decades, chemical food safety issues that have been the center of media attention include the presence of natural toxins, processing-produced toxins (e.g., acrylamide, heterocyclic aromatic amines, and furan), food allergens, heavy metals (e.g., lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium), industrial chemicals (e.g., benzene, perchlorate), contaminants from packaging materials, and unconventional contaminants (melamine) in food and feed. Due to the global nature of the food supply and advances in analytical capabilities, chemical contaminants will continue to be an area of concern for regulatory agencies, the food industry, and consumers in the future.

The Agriculture and Food Chemistry Division (AGFD) was founded in 1908 shortly after passage of the first U.S. food regulations in 1906. Modern food regulations started with the passage of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1938. This Act has been amended several times to keep pace with developments in food chemistry. In 1958 the Food Additives Amendment was enacted to control substances added to food. Since 1958 scientific techniques have been developed to evaluate the safety and carcinogenicity of substances in the food supply. In the 1970s and 1980s AGFD symposia and books addressed compounds of concern in foods. In the 1990s food safety and nutrition regulations followed new developments in food and nutrition chemistry. Recently, the well-studied toxin acrylamide was discovered in food and presented regulators with new questions on safety and control in the food supply. Discoveries and developments in chemistry such as those in nanotechnology will continue to present challenges to food regulators.

The primary objective was to determine the aluminium (Al) content of selected foods and food products in the USA which contain Al as an approved food additive. Intake of Al from the labeled serving size of each food product was calculated. The samples were acid or base digested and analysed for Al using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Quality control (QC) samples, with matrices matching the samples, were generated and used to verify the Al determinations. Food product Al content ranged from <1-27,000 mg kg(-1). Cheese in a serving of frozen pizzas had up to 14 mg of Al, from basic sodium aluminium phosphate; whereas the same amount of cheese in a ready-to-eat restaurant pizza provided 0.03-0.09 mg. Many single serving packets of non-dairy creamer had approximately 50-600 mg Al kg(-1) as sodium aluminosilicate, providing up to 1.5 mg Al per serving. Many single serving packets of salt also had sodium aluminosilicate as an additive, but the Al content was less than in single-serving non-dairy creamer packets. Acidic sodium aluminium phosphate was present in many food products, pancakes and waffles. Baking powder, some pancake/waffle mixes and frozen products, and ready-to-eat pancakes provided the most Al of the foods tested; up to 180 mg/serving. Many products provide a significant amount of Al compared to the typical intake of 3-12 mg/day reported from dietary Al studies conducted in many countries.

Food-use applications of mineral hydrocarbons (MHC) derived from petroleum sources result in dietary exposure to these compounds by consumers. Food applications of MHC, including white mineral oils, paraffin waxes, microcrystalline waxes and petrolatum, include both direct-additive uses in which the MHC is intentionally applied to the food and indirect-additive uses in which the MHC become components of the food due to migration from food-contact surfaces. A key consideration in evaluating the safety of these uses of MHC is the level of exposure that results. We estimated exposures to MHC in the US from food applications based primarily on a food-consumption approach, in which MHC concentrations in foods were multiplied by the amount of these foods consumed. This was a conservative estimate, because it assumes that all foods that might contain MHC in fact do so at maximum possible concentrations. A "poundage approach", in which the amount of MHC used in food applications was divided by the US population to determine maximum potential per capita exposures, was used to validate the consumption-based estimates. Exposures to MHC from food-packaging applications were estimated using the FDA's food-factor approach, which takes into account the volume and kinds of food packaged with specific types of materials. A conservative estimate of mean exposure to all MHC types combined is 0.875 mg/kg BW/day. Half of this, 0.427 mg/kg BW/day, is white mineral oils used as pan-release lubricants in baking, for de-dusting of stored grain, in confectioneries, and in coatings for fruits and vegetables. Nearly all of the remainder, 0.404 mg/kg BW/day, is petrolatum, primarily from its use as trough grease in bakery applications. Exposure to paraffin and microcrystalline waxes combined is only 0.044 mg/kg BW/day.

Foods contain a wide range of food ingredients that serve numerous technical functions. Per capita consumer exposure to most of these food ingredients is rather low with a few notable exceptions such as sugar and starch. Some food ingredients including edible oils, hydrolyzed proteins, lecithin, starch, lactose, flavors and gelatin may, at least in some products, be derived from sources commonly involved in IgE-mediated food allergies. These ingredients should be avoided by consumers with allergies to the source material if the ingredient contains detectable protein residues. Other food ingredients, including starch, malt, alcohol and vinegar, may be derived in some cases from wheat, rye or barley, the grains that are implicated in the causation of celiac disease. If these ingredients contain gluten residues, then they should be avoided by celiac sufferers. A few food ingredients are capable of eliciting allergic sensitization, although these ingredients would be classified as rarely allergenic. These ingredients include carmine, cochineal extract, annatto, tragacanth gum and papain. Food manufacturers should declare the presence of allergenic food ingredients in the ingredient listings on product labels so that allergic consumers can know to avoid these potentially hazardous products.

There are currently no scientifically defined critical management points or critical control points to manage foodborne pathogens at the pre-harvest level. Research is ongoing: much of the pre-harvest research is funded by producer organisations. The beef industry has Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) programmes in place and these are dynamic. Groups of cattlemen have made a very strong commitment to reducing foodborne pathogens in beef. Fewer Escherichia coli O157:H7 organisms are shed by feedlot cattle near the end of the feeding period than by newly arrived cattle. Moreover, there is less shedding of the organisms in cattle of slaughter age than in younger cattle. The prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 in feedlot cattle is similar to that in range cattle. This suggests that concentrating cattle in feedlot dirt pens does not increase the risk of shedding E. coli organisms. Pen maintenance, considered a good management practice, appears to be an adequate means of keeping pathogen levels in pens low. It is not likely that pre-harvest food safety programmes will eliminate the threat of pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7 or Salmonella. The management of foodborne pathogens will become part of an integrated programme to enhance food safety which includes the producer, the packer, the distributors, retailers and the consumer. The feedlot industry initiated a residue avoidance programme several years ago. As a result, the risk of chemical residues in beef from feedlots in the United States of America is near zero. Hazard analysis and critical control point-type prevention programmes, using scientifically based critical management points, will help ensure that the risk remains negligible.

There are a number of sources of variability in food consumption patterns and residue levels of a particular chemical (e.g., pesticide, food additive) in commodities that lead to an expected high level of variability in dietary exposures across a population. This paper focuses on examples of consumption pattern survey data for specific commodities, namely that for wine and grape juice, and demonstrates how such data might be analyzed in preparation for performing stochastic analyses of dietary exposure. Data from the NIAAA/NHIS wine consumption survey were subset for gender and age group and, with matched body weight data from the survey database, were used to define empirically-based percentile estimates for wine intake (microliter wine/kg body weight) for the strata of interest. The data for these two subpopulations were analyzed to estimate 14-day consumption distributional statistics and distributions for only those days on which wine was consumed. Data subsets for all wine-consuming adults and wine-consuming females ages 18 through 45, were determined to fit a lognormal distribution (R2 = 0.99 for both datasets). Market share data were incorporated into estimation of chronic exposures to hypothetical chemical residues in imported table wine. As a separate example, treatment of grape juice consumption data for females, ages 18-40, as a simple lognormal distribution resulted in a significant underestimation of intake, and thus exposure, because the actual distribution is a mixture (i.e., multiple subpopulations of grape juice consumers exist in the parent distribution). Thus, deriving dietary intake statistics from food consumption survey data requires careful analysis of the underlying empirical distributions.

In the absence of effective federal regulation, the meat industry uses hundreds of animal feed additives, including antibiotics, tranquilizers, pesticides, animal drugs, artificial flavors, industrial wastes, and growth-promoting hormones, with little or no concern about the carcinogenic and other toxic effects of dietary residues of these additives. Illustratively, after decades of misleading assurances of the safety of diethylstilbestrol (DES) and its use as a growth-promoting animal-feed additive, the United States finally banned its use in 1979 some 40 years after it was first shown to be carcinogenic. The meat industry then promptly switched to other carcinogenic additives, particularly the natural sex hormones estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone, which are implanted in the ears of more than 90 percent of commercially raised feedlot cattle. Unlike the synthetic DES, residues of which can be monitored and use of which was conditional on a seven-day preslaughter withdrawal period, residues of natural hormones are not detectable, since they cannot be practically differentiated from the same hormones produced by the body. The relationship between recently increasing cancer rates and the lifetime exposure of the U.S. population to dietary residues of these and other unlabeled carcinogenic feed additives is a matter of critical public health concern.

A review of the current literature indicates that scientific knowledge of sulfiting agents in food is changing rapidly. Many of the old assumptions about usage of sulfiting agents have been put in doubt by new scientific data. Some basic definitions of sulfiting agents and their chemical behavior in food are presented.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's regulation of food and food ingredients is essentially limited to meat and poultry products. Within this area, there do not appear to be any overriding general problems associated with the concept of the use of adherence markers that are deemed to be both safe and effective. Although present regulations do not specifically authorize such a practice, they could be amended through utilization of standard rule-making procedures. There also appears to be sufficient basis, under current regulation, for some controlled, experimental evaluation of the concept. The Department's inspection and label approval systems for meat and poultry products may serve to facilitate such an approach, while providing a relatively high level of regulatory control. Practical problems, in areas such as the scope and applicability of inspection coverage and appropriate labeling, can and should be identified and resolved at a relatively early stage of the project, if the introduction of these substances into meat and poultry products is deemed to be a viable option.