Food Safety Archives

Soil Factors Driving Uptake of Toxic Elements by Rice and Leafy Greens

April 7, 2025/in Food Chem Safety /by Steven

Rice and leafy greens are healthy, widely consumed foods but are susceptible to contamination by soil-occurring toxic elements such as arsenic, cadmium and lead. This project will build upon recent work funded by the Food & Chemical Safety Committee that identified a critical need for a deeper understanding of the interrelationships among soil characteristics, mitigation options and resulting levels of toxic elements in plants and commodities. This project will address key questions around how soil concentrations of toxic elements are impacted by soil characteristics to affect potential transfer to crops while also investigating the distribution and variability of these elements in specific crops across growing regions.

Investigators: Dr. Matt Limmer, PhD and Angelia Seyfferth, PhD

Institution: University of Delaware

Barriers and Challenges to Estimating Caffeine Intake

April 3, 2025/in Caffeine /by Steven

There is a need for peer-reviewed literature that provides good guidance on how to determine caffeine intake in individuals consuming caffeine and for research where caffeine intake is a factor that needs to be accurately assessed. The IAFNS Caffeine Committee will leverage high-resolution caffeine consumption data from the recent extensive survey sponsored by the committee, along with other published data, to develop a novel paper on the topic. The paper will include caffeine intake variables such as method of preparation, gender, and individual habits. The paper will be a resource for stakeholders seeking more accurate caffeine intake estimates in the US including beverage companies, government regulators and dietitians.

Tracking the Fate of Additives in Recycled Plastics through Multiple Simulated Life Cycles

March 25, 2025/in Food Packaging Safety /by Steven

Research question: What are the technical, quality, safety, and migration impacts of recycling Polypropylene multiple times?

Most companies have made sustainability commitments that will require a rapid adoption of higher concentrations of recycled plastics. This will eventually result in plastics that have served multiple service life cycles. However, there are numerous knowledge gaps regarding the influence of the number of life cycles on the fate of additives and their influence on physical properties. The proposed research will utilize virgin and material recovery facility post-consumer plastics to increase the understanding of the physical and chemical property changes and migration potential as a function of simulated life cycles via mechanical recycling for both post-consumer and post-industrial polypropylene. Many research studies have demonstrated that physical properties of virgin/PCR blends follow the law of mixtures, therefore, the proposed research will focus on 100% recycled plastic for the simulated life cycles. A key knowledge gap that will be addressed is understanding the change in diffusion properties of additives and their accumulation as a function of life cycles and changes in plastic molecular structure.

Deliverables:

Identification of key physical attributes that can indicate recycled plastic quality for polypropylene (PP)
Monitor physical and chemical changes of material recovery facility sourced plastics PP as a function of simulated life cycles. Differences will be compared to virgin PP undergoing the same treatments.
Determine changes in migrant diffusion coefficients of material recovery facility sourced PP as a function of simulated life cycles.

Institution: Polymer and Food Protection Consortium, Iowa State University

Primary Investigator: Greg Curtzwiler, PhD

Year: 2025

This effort is supported by IAFNS Food Packaging Safety & Sustainability Committee

Exposure Characterization of Micro- and Nanoplastics in Foods

March 19, 2025/in Food Chem Safety /by Steven

The volume of plastics produced globally every year has steadily increased over the last few decades and shows no signs of tapering. As of 2017, an estimated total of 8.3 billion tons of resins and fibers had been produced globally with the most common use being in packaging. In the last few years, scientists have recognized the emergence of micro- and nanoplastic (MNP) particles in food as in the waters, air, soil, and biota. Once ingested through food, MNPs can sequester in blood and other tissues. This project will characterize food and packaging plastics through micronization, artificial weathering, simulated gastrointestinal digestion, and analysis of their physical and chemical properties. Based on their properties, a framework will be crafted to assess human adsorption and absorption of micro- and nanoplastics from food and packaging.