Summary Food safety

BLGY1211 Food safety

Deaths registered in England and Wales
Reason Male Female
Poisoning by drugs, 1,514 678
medicaments and biological
substances
4-Aminophenol derivatives 72 62
Heroin 166 25
Toxic effect of alcohol 134 60
Toxic effect of carbon 189 47
monoxide
Toxic effect of pesticides 4 2

The natural goodness of food
 No human diet can be free of naturally occurring chemicals that are rodent
carcinogens  of the chemicals that people eat 99.99% are natural
 Some foods are always hazardous; nutmeg and mace, cassava
 Conventional plant breeding can produce hazardous products;
 Celery psoralens furanocoumarins
 Potato solanins and glycoalkaloids  bonan magnum – nausea – 11 people in
Sweden  all new varieties now checked

Food safety
 Risk = Hazard x Exposure
 Coffee, 70mg caffeine/cup  range 15-450mg/cup
 300mg impairs normal function
 the safe limit for pregnant women is one cup a day
 100 cups is lethal
 margin of exposure between exposure and risk; less than 100 if coffee drinking
acceptable  bt>300,000
 Basis of pharmacology – nothing is a poison, everything is a poison as it’s the dose
that makes the poison

Transgenic crops have broad potential to help the poor
 Pest and disease resistance
 Drought tolerance
 Cold tolerance
 Acid soil tolerance
 Reduced fertilizer use
 Nutritional benefits
 Reduced land demand
 Social benefits

Bt cotton and insect control in India
 Benefits;