Objectives
In all matters relating to the safety and benefits of food and their components, there is a need to accurately estimate food intake by consumers. This applies not only to food additives but also to ingredients such as herbs, spices and flavourings, to new functional ingredients, to processing aids, to novel food ingredients, packaging materials, agricultural residues and contaminants.
The primary goal of the task force is to develop and evaluate methodology to accurately quantify food intake and the exposure to food constituents. Despite being an essential component of any risk-benefit assessment, it is clear that there is a lack of reliable methodology in this area, with exposure data often being the limiting factor.
In the past, this task force has reviewed methods for screening flavourings and additives, the focus being on safety assessment of foods. Both deterministic and probabilistic measures have been evaluated and the findings published in peer-reviewed journals.
By developing simple, robust and cost-effective intake methodologies for a range of food constituents, the task force will continue to contribute to the harmonisation of exposure assessment undertaken by the Exposure Assessment Working Group of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Future activities of the task force will focus on intake methodologies suitable for a range of food constituents providing important support to the activities of many of the other ILSI Europe task forces, especially those grouped under the Assessment of Benefit and Risks cluster.
Activities
Supermarket Fidelity Cards as a Source of Data for Refined Intake Assessment – Pilot Study
In 2004 the task force launched a novel project assessing the use of supermarket fidelity card data to estimate food chemical intake. The results from the pilot-study on E110 (sunset yellow) are highly promising (with regards to reliability and cost effectiveness). This methodology was further improved by applying the probabilistic modelling approach.
The methodology and the results of the pilot study have been presented at Eurotox 2006 in Dubrovnik. Since EFSA and other groups in Europe are also working on exposure assessment, the task force presented the outcome of this collaborative work to the Additives Working Group of EFSA. The methodology together with the results of the pilot study will be published in the first half of 2008 in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
To overcome some limitations of this first survey, it will be repeated over a longer period. The data collection will again involve the same additive, E110, but instead of monitoring for a period of 15 days, the new survey would aim to study intakes for a longer timeframe of 1 year. This would help eliminate any bias that may be caused by seasonal variations. The intake estimations will be closer to true intakes. It will also give valuable information on the consumption profiles of the population (frequency of purchases, quantities).
Mini-Workshop on Exposure Assessment
Exposure assessment has been recognised as a key component of any risk-benefit assessment. However, it is well known that there is a lack of reliable methodology in this area for assessing consumer exposures to both food constituents and non-food products. There is a growing concern about the assessment of the exposure to a broad range of compounds (nutrients, additives, flavourings, materials migrating from packaging, chemical contaminants, pesticide residues, microbial contamination, new functional or novel ingredients, food allergens) of differing chemistries, functions and use levels in foods.
The Task Force aims at developing and evaluating methodologies to accurately quantify food intake and exposure to the various food constituents. This goal is aligned to EFSA’s efforts towards the harmonisation of exposure assessment methodologies that will include building harmonised food consumption and composition databases.
As exposure assessment is a field that obviously cuts across several ILSI Europe task forces, the Food Intake Methodology Task Force proposes to organise an ILSI Europe joint meeting on ‘exposure assessment’. The mini-workshop aims to promote cross-fertilisation between the ILSI Europe task forces and scope out other task forces’ exposure assessment priorities.
Fostering interaction between the different task forces, this meeting will offer a unique opportunity for:
- Developing communication between task forces that are concerned by exposure assessment issues;
- Initiating collaborations between the Food Intake in methodology task force and other task forces.
The task force members have already identified areas of discussion, such as:
- Dietary Intake Surveys
- Methodology: Deterministic versus Probabilistic
- Ideas for case studies to test methodologies
Task Force Collaborators
The scientists below participate in the task force:
Experts from supporting member companies
Dr. Neil Buck, DSM (CH)
Ms. Christine Guittard, DSM (CH)
Dr. Samuel Molinary, Tate & Lyle Speciality Sweeteners (USA)
Dr. Hervé Nordmann, Ajinomoto Europe (CH)
Mr. Robert Safford, Unilever (UK)
Dr. Jürgen Schnabel, Givaudan (CH)
Dr. Alexander Schoch Südzucker/BENEO Group (DE)
Dr. Benjamin Smith Firmenich (CH)
Dr. Rachel Ward, PepsiCo International (UK)
Expert from consultancy
Dr. David Tennant (UK)
Publications
J.Lambe, P. Cadby and M. Gibney. Comparison of Stochastic Modelling of the Intakes of Intentionally Added Flavouring Substances with Theoretical Added Maximum Daily Intakes (TAMDI) and Maximized Survey-Derived Daily Intakes (MSDI). Food Additives and Contaminants 2002;19(1):2-14.
J. S. Douglass, L. M. Barraj, D.R. Tennant et al. Evaluation of the Budget Method for Screening Food Additives Intakes. Food Additives and Contaminants 1997;14(8):791-802.
An Evaluation of the Budget Method for Screening Food Additive Intake. ILSI Europe Report Series 1997:1-11.
R. Walker, A. Lützow, J. Howlett and M. Knowles. Food Additive Intake: Scientific Assessment of the Regulatory Requirements in Europe. Food Additives and Contaminants 1996;13(4):383-476.
To download the poster of the task force, click here.
For more information contact info@ilsieurope.be.