Creme Articles
Creme helps industry to address EU health claims
As the European Union increases its crackdown on food companies that advertise nutritional health benefits without sufficient validated scientific backing, many food companies, including cereal manufacturers may be forced to abandon health claims used to promote their products.
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FSAI recognise the important role of Creme
When the Irish government issued a recall in December 2008 of all Irish pork products dating back to 1st September 2008, it sent shockwaves through the agricultural industry, particularly the embattled pig production and processing sector.
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Pork Crisis Highlights Need For Accurate Data
These are serious times for the Irish Food industry and for the Government agencies that are responsible for regulating it. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland issued a recall of all Irish pork products that were produced from pigs slaughtered in Ireland.
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Pesticides and Contaminants in Food - the safety issue
I recently attended a workshop on "Pesticides and Contaminants in Food - the safety issue" organised by RELAY and hosted by UCD in Dublin. The discussion varied from monitoring of pesticides and contaminants to the best methods of assessing consumer exposure to contaminants.» Read more
Should ADIs Really be Taken in Isolation?
Chemical risk assessments are currently performed for single chemicals individually. That is, consumer exposure to a chemical is assessed in isolation from all other chemicals they are also being exposed to. The risk of aggregate exposure to multiple chemicals is not being assessed. What does this mean for current methods of chemical risk assessment?» Read more
Creme Nutrition day in London
We enjoyed a very successful launch of Creme Nutrition in London in association with Purely Nutrition this month. The discussion with the group of industry nutritionists was very active and productive and it clarified a few points which I would like to share with you in our here.» Read more
Nano Liquid Glass Surface Protection - Food for Thought
Nanotechnology is transforming the whole infrastructure around food hygiene and surface protection from farm to fork. Nanotechnology products are now transforming the way we clean our buildings, and sanitize food preparation machines and work areas.» Read more
Information Overload?
A large number of articles on food, chemical and product safety were published in the media this month. Topics as diverse as lead in lipstick, hazardous popcorn ingredients, the health benefits of organic food, Bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic, nutrition, physical activity and the risk of cancer were covered.» Read more
Nano Foods - The Silent Revolution?
Nanotechnology in the food and consumer product industries has been a silent revolution as products are developed and marketed with little attention in the general media. We need to understand what questions need to be to asked regarding this issue before meaningful answers can be given.» Read more
Making the Most of Your Food Consumption Databases
This article is taken from a talk I gave at the IFSTI annual meeting in Kilkenny recently. The PowerPoint presentation from that talk can be downloaded from the link below. In that talk, I asked the question: What more can we do to really understand the exposure levels to food chemicals for different demographics groups of the population?» Read more » Español » Français
» Download presentation (log in to CRN)
Open Innovation in the Food Industry
There are major new drivers impacting how consumers make choices about the foods they will spend money on. The food industry is responding to these drivers by developing new and innovative products. This has led to the development and marketing of more sophisticated food products from functional foods to nutraceuticals.» Read more » Español » Français
Chemical Exposure from Imported Food Products
Due to the large quantities of food being imported by countries in today's global markets, routine monitoring of these imported products for chemical contaminants is essential to ensure compliance with chemical safety regulations. Chemicals that have long been removed from the supply chain for products and commodities produced locally can turn up in imported shipments of products.» Read more » Español » Français » Italiano
Product Recalls
Within the last few months, there have been a number of high profile food safety scares in the international news. How could a similar situation affect you? What effect could a food scare have on consumer behaviour? If there were preventative measures that you could implement in order to reduce product recalls and increase consumer trust and brand loyalty, would you be interested?» Read more » Español » Français » Italiano
CRN - International Collaboration Network Launched
In response to the demand from researchers in government authorities, industry and universities, Creme has launched an international collaboration forum CRN (Creme Research Network) to allow researchers to discuss current research issues, share data and expertise and to collaborate on questions related to food safety, nutrition, cosmetics, chemical safety and the environment.» Read more » Español » Français » Italiano
Folic Acid - Give mothers-to-be their daily bread
Folic acid is a B vitamin which cannot be produced within the human body. That is why it must either be taken in as food or by means of a folic acid supplement in tablet form. Folic acid is reported to be beneficial for women who are planning on becoming pregnant. Taking extra folic acid before becoming pregnant and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy can help reduce the risk of development of a neural tube defect (NTD) in the baby.» Read more » Español » Français » Italiano
Obesity in Children
Childhood obesity has widely spread in industrialized countries. In the USA, over 15% of children are currently considered obese and the number is likely to grow in the future.
In Ireland alone, about 300,000 children are
overweight or obese. Obesity indirectly leads to
about 2,000 deaths a year and also to indirect costs
of about 4 bn EUR a year.
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The Effect of Diversity in People's Eating Habits
There are thousands of foods available on the market, with thousands of brands and hundreds of potential hazards in the food chain. Where do you start?
People eat different things on different days, and different people have very different eating habits, not least during holiday seasons. This is natural variability in people's habits and has to be handled in a food safety or benefits assessment. This natural variability is different to uncertainty in that it is not a measurement error and can not be reduced by further measurements. It is a natural effect of people's choices. This variability is included in an exposure assessment if the full food consumption survey is considered in the analysis.
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» Italiano
What is Probabilistic Food Safety Exposure Assessment?
There are a myriad of chemicals in food products consumed by populations. Each chemical in its own right may not be harmful to the population, but in combination with other chemicals, there may be risk of high levels of exposure to potentially harmful substances.
An effective probabilistic exposure assessment needs to handle the variability and uncertainty of this real world situation. Variability characterises the natural differences between consumers' characteristics and habits. These are natural variations such as people's bodyweight, different people eating different things or people changing their own eating habits from day to day. Note that the variability in these values would not be reduced by further measurement.
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» Italiano
What's in the Package?
What exactly is in your food's packaging? Migrants from food contact materials, often referred to as indirect food additives, have been shown to be present at low concentrations in food. As these migrants are hazards, their presence in food needs to be regulated. The new EU super directive aims to regulate all substances that may migrate from the food contact material into the food. These include all impurities, degradation products and aids to polymerisation that may be present in the finished food contact material.» Read more » Italiano
The Real World
As outlined in our Ideal World Article, it is not feasible nor even possible to have a complete food consumption data set which records every single ingredient or chemical exactly. It is especially not possible to have an up to date one, since food consumption habits and compositions are changing constantly and food surveys are carried out infrequently due to the cost and time required to perform them.» Read more » Italiano
In an Ideal World
In an ideal world, complete and accurate food consumption survey data would be available, compiled with full information at the individual eating event level. For every food specified in an eating event, the food brand and packaging type would also be specified. For each food brand, information would be available on concentration levels of all possible pesticides, residues, additives and nutrients.» Read more » Italiano
Food Safety Assessment - Beyond the Spreadsheet
Today more than ever, there are a myriad of hazards and questionable substances in food products consumed by populations. Each one in its own right may not be harmful to the population, but in combination with other substances from our diverse eating habits, there may be risk of high levels of exposure to potentially harmful substances.» Read more