DIETARY ASSESSMENT

The Use of New Technology in Dietary Assessment



The Use of New Technology in Dietary Assessment

Introduction

In the past, foods prepared and consumed traditionally considered safe for a long time after consuming them, even those containing natural toxicants (eg solanine in potatoes) or anti-nutritional substances (eg phytate in the bean sprouts). However, according to current scientific language can only say that a food is safe when it is reasonably certain about its safety for the use it deserves, according to the conditions expected consumption (Thompson & Subar, 2008: 14).

Discussion Analysis

During the seventies, greatly accelerated the progress in technology applied to food. Since then, many countries had experience in the safety assessment of food additives and contaminants. However, it had little practice in estimating the safety of novel foods and ingredients ("new foods") (Subar & Craft et al. 2010: 63). Given that costs are additive at much less than the food ingredients, not easily applied to new food techniques used to monitor the safety and well-defined substance.

To ensure systematic monitoring of the safety of new foods, the Advisory Group Proteins saber United Nations (PAG / UNU) in 1972 drafted the Guidelines for preclinical testing of new sources of protein, and the Guidelines for tests on food supplements combined in man. These Guidelines are focused on new microbial proteins. The United Nations University, the revised and reissued in 1983, when it was expanded to also cover content preclinical tests on new sources of food and novel food testing in man (Larsson & Westerterp , 2008: 268). Novel foods are defined as those which so far have not been consumed by man. In the Guidelines, identified the main categories of information required for safety assessment of novel foods, and some of the problems that are presented to verify their safety.

Challenges In The Assessment Of Food Safety

The usual method to check the safety of a substance in a food (such as additives or contaminants) is to feed it to laboratory animals. After determining the dose in the diet produced no adverse effects in animals, we calculate the maximum amount that humans can eat, taking a wide margin of safety (often more than 100 times). This is possible because the substances can be introduced into the animal diet in amounts equivalent to several times the amount provided for human consumption.

This technique may not be adequate to evaluate the safety of novel foods and ingredients, as these are found in food for human consumption at much higher than those of the additives. The "new alimnetos" may be more than 10% of the diet, and it would be impossible to introduce in animal diets in amounts a hundred times higher (Kikunaga & Ishibashi , 2010: 109). Moreover, even if it were possible to include these foods in animal diets in amounts approaching 10% or 20% and get the animals ingested, the nutritional balance of the diet would be severely affected. Many of the new food, like their predecessors, are complex mixtures of several substances, among which are micronutrients ...