Food safety (HACCP) plans assess and manage food safety risks from biological, physical and chemical hazards. From HACCP plans reviewed the emphasis is on hazards that cause short term harm. Big money spent on metal detectors, limit physical hazards that may cause short term harm affecting only a few products and people. HACCP plans do consider chemical hazards, but what about the silent hazards? Silent hazards are environmental chemical hazards, that at low doses, cause long term harm affecting many people. Relatively few HACCP plans consider these. So what are they, what is their significance? What is the link to “future-focused food safety”? Let's find out...
What are environmental chemical hazards?
In short, they are various groups of man-made chemicals from industrial activity, which cannot easily break down and are therefore known as “persistent” environmental pollutants (PEPs). PEPs find their way into the food chain, and accumulate in fatty tissue along the food chain, increasing up to 25 million times… with humans at the top [4].
The best-known PEPs include
- PCBs – previously used in transformers
- Dioxins – from bleaching- and combustion processes
- BPA – used in packaging e.g. polycarbonates and can coatings
- Pesticides – DDT
Why are they significant?
Cancer
Persistent chemicals pose several concerns. Some are extremely toxic like Dioxin, a known human carcinogen, with no “safe dose” [1]. Yet more than 90% of human exposure to dioxin is through meat, dairy and fish products [3].
Endocrine disrupters
Most PEPs are “endocrine disrupters”. Mimicking hormones, they wreak havoc with finely-tuned endocrine systems acting as hormone disrupters and immune suppressant affecting long term fertility, disease resistance, learning and behavioural problems in the next generation [2].
For normal foetal development, hormone messages, time and dose all need to be “just right”. Pre-birth hormones permanently organise cells, organs, brain and behaviour before birth. Abnormal hormone levels in the womb cause lifelong damage [4].
Foetuses and infants are most vulnerable: they can acquire an adult’s lifetime exposure of PCBs within their first year as the mother passes accumulated PCBs to her unborn child during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Harmful effects described above only show in adulthood [5].
Further concerns
- Their persistence and wide distribution
- Affecting biological systems at extremely low levels (parts per trillion)
- The limited capability of industrial test equipment (parts per billion) to detect low levels
- The significant bio-magnification of chemicals
- Human exposure to PEPs is mostly through animal products
- Significant long term harm for future generations
Practical steps
The good news: There are many practical cost-effective steps responsible food manufacturers can take to limit PEPs in food, to be covered in future articles.
For starters: See the Codex Alimentarius Code of Practice (CAC/RCP 62-2006) for reducing Dioxins and PCB contamination in food and feeds, and other great links below.
Food for thought
Is food safety is sufficiently future-focused? Should HACCP plans consider more long term food safety hazards and expand from “farm to fork” to “womb to tomb”?
Curious? Read more
Codex Guidelines
PCBs
Dioxin
BPA
References
[1] http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/ Dioxins and Furans: The Most Toxic chemicals known to Science
[2] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/ Dioxins and their effects on human health
[3] http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/home/en/news_archive/2009_IN_dioxin.html Animal production &Health
[4] Theo Colburn, Our stolen Future: How we are threatening our fertility, intelligence and survival
[5] Mortimer and Wallace, HACCP a practical approach
[6] Watson, David. Food Chemical Safety Volume 1: Contaminants
Author
Lu Marie Sobey
