How Scientists Assess Food Safety Risks
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Understanding Food Safety and Toxicology
Basics of Food Toxicology
Chemical Risks in Food
How Scientists Assess Food Safety Risks
Food Safety is an Evolving Science
Eating a Balanced and Safe Diet
Organic Food Safety
Food Safety and Toxicology
Diabetes Information for Older Adults
Signs & Symptoms of Diabetes in Older Adults
Living with Diabetes as an Older Adult
Diabetes Treatment Options for Older Adults
Managing Diabetes Complications as an Older Adult
Foods That Can Burn Fat
Introduction To Celiac Disease
5 Important Steps For New Celiacs
Testing for Celiac Disease
Understanding The Gluten Intolerance Spectrum
Dining Out With Celiac Disease
Managing Food Allergies In School
Carl Winter
Carl Winter, IFT spokesperson and food toxicologist, University of California Davis
530-752-5448
ckwinter@ucdavis.edu
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>
How Scientists Assess Food Safety Risks
Carl Winter: Hi! My name is Carl Winter. I am a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists and a Food Toxicologist on the faculty at the University of California, Davis.
Today we're discussing food safety issues concerning chemical contaminants in foods that might be potentially hazardous.
Transcripts
Carl Winter: Hi! My name is Carl Winter. I am a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists and a Food Toxicologist on the faculty at the University of California, Davis.
Today we're discussing food safety issues concerning chemical contaminants in foods that might be potentially hazardous. In previous segments, we've already established that the dose of the chemicals is very important in terms of determining whether there might be any harm. I've also established that for most chemical contaminants our dose as consumers is very, very low.
What I'd like to focus on in this segment is the process by which scientists use to determine what might be acceptable levels of exposure to chemical contaminants. Obviously, we're not allowed to study the effects of these chemicals directly on humans. So what scientists generally will do, will be to study the effects of these chemicals on laboratory animals and then try to extrapolate the results from those studies to predict what might happen in human populations.
This is not a completely precise approach, and in many cases, we make very conservative assumptions that humans maybe much more sensitive than the laboratory animals. For example, if we did a study and we determined that there was a particular dose when given to a laboratory animal on a daily basis throughout the animal's entire lifetime, that didn't cause any effect, we might consider an acceptable level of exposure for humans to be a very small fraction of that often one hundred times lower than that dose or a thousand times lower than that dose to give us a cushion. When we talk about chemicals like pesticide residues, in fact, often we will see that our typical exposures to pesticide residues in the diet are generally levels of 10,000 times or 100,000 times lower than doses that haven't even caused effects in the laboratory animals. This is one key reason why most health professionals consider the potential risk from pesticide residues and foods to be negligible. At the same time there are still a lot of controversies concerning chemicals in foods. In the next segment, we'll talk about some of the reasons that these controversies exist.
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