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Understanding Food Safety and Toxicology

Chemical Risks in Food

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Dr. Winter is an Institute of Food Technologists spokesperson and a food toxicologist on the faculty of the University of California at Davis. He researches the detection of pesticides and naturally-occurring toxins in foods, how to assess their risks and identify how to use the science in the regulatory decision-making process. His most recent work includes looking at the relationships between crop production systems and naturally-occurring toxins. He also studies how to improve educational activities through incorporation of music into food safety curricula. His food safety education work has received several accolades including the NSF International Food Safety Leadership Award for Education and Training 2009.

For more information visit on the Institute of Food Technologists visit: <a>www.ift.org/</a>

For more information about Dr. Winter's food safety education program visit: <a>foodsafe.ucdavis.edu</a>

Chemical Risks in Food

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Food

Toxicology

Toxins

Toxin

Toxic

Fruit

Vegetable

Pesticide

Pesticides

Grains

Healthy

Eating

Chemicals

Chemical

Dangerous

Safe

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Carl Winter: Hi! My name is Carl Winter. I am a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists. I'm also a Food Toxicologist on the faculty at the University of California, Davis.

Today I'm talking about food safety issues that resolve from the presence of potentially dangerous chemical contaminants in our food. In the last segment, we discussed the basic principles of toxicology, and how is the dose that makes the poison. It's the amount of a chemical rather than its presence or absence that determines the potential for harm. This is really important when we talk about chemical contaminants in the food supply because our laboratories are capable of detecting very tiny amount of chemicals in the food. So we can often identify the presence of these chemicals. The most important thing from a toxicological perspective is to determine whether those amounts are of health concern.

Fortunately, for most of the chemical contaminants that we find in the food supply, even though we can detect them, the amounts that we're exposed to are very, very low. In many cases, thousands or hundreds of thousands of times lower than amounts that we can feed laboratory animals that don't show any effects in those laboratory animals.

What I'll be talking about in the next segment will be how scientists determine what's an acceptable level of exposure to these chemicals, and then how some of these chemical contaminants compare with respect to those allowable levels.

Chemical Risks in Food

Understanding Food Safety and Toxicology

Basics of Food Toxicology