scholarly journals The Sulphur Response in Wheat Grain and Its Implications for Acrylamide Formation and Food Safety

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Raffan ◽  
Joseph Oddy ◽  
Nigel G. Halford
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Genetic Control ◽  
Nitrogen Availability ◽  
Regulatory Protein ◽  
Regulatory Compliance ◽  
Asparagine Synthetase ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Wheat Grain ◽  
Basic Leucine Zipper ◽  
Sulphur Deficiency

Free (soluble, non-protein) asparagine concentration can increase many-fold in wheat grain in response to sulphur deficiency. This exacerbates a major food safety and regulatory compliance problem for the food industry because free asparagine may be converted to the carcinogenic contaminant, acrylamide, during baking and processing. Here, we describe the predominant route for the conversion of asparagine to acrylamide in the Maillard reaction. The effect of sulphur deficiency and its interaction with nitrogen availability is reviewed, and we reiterate our advice that sulphur should be applied to wheat being grown for human consumption at a rate of 20 kg per hectare. We describe the genetic control of free asparagine accumulation, including genes that encode metabolic enzymes (asparagine synthetase, glutamine synthetase, glutamate synthetase, and asparaginase), regulatory protein kinases (sucrose nonfermenting-1 (SNF1)-related protein kinase-1 (SnRK1) and general control nonderepressible-2 (GCN2)), and basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors, and how this genetic control responds to sulphur, highlighting the importance of asparagine synthetase-2 (ASN2) expression in the embryo. We show that expression of glutamate-cysteine ligase is reduced in response to sulphur deficiency, probably compromising glutathione synthesis. Finally, we describe unexpected effects of sulphur deficiency on carbon metabolism in the endosperm, with large increases in expression of sucrose synthase-2 (SuSy2) and starch synthases.

Correcting Misperceptions About Genetically Modified Food on Social Media: Examining the Impact of Experts, Social Media Heuristics, and the Gateway Belief Model

2020 ◽  
pp. 107554702098137
Author(s):  
Leticia Bode ◽  
Emily K. Vraga ◽  
Melissa Tully
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Genetically Modified Food ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Gm Food ◽  
Belief Model ◽  
The Impact

We experimentally test whether expert organizations on social media can correct misperceptions of the scientific consensus on the safety of genetically modified (GM) food for human consumption, as well as what role social media cues, in the form of “likes,” play in that process. We find expert organizations highlighting scientific consensus on GM food safety reduces consensus misperceptions among the public, leading to lower GM misperceptions and boosting related consumption behaviors in line with the gateway belief model. Expert organizations’ credibility may increase as a result of correction, but popularity cues do not seem to affect misperceptions or credibility.

An industry perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Taylor ◽  
Jean Pierre Garat ◽  
Samer Simreen ◽  
Ghida Sarieddine
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Safety Culture ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Regulatory Compliance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Management Standards ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Food Safety Culture

Purpose – This paper aims to outline the food safety roles and responsibilities within the industry that play an important role in the success of government initiatives, demonstrated using a new model of Food Safety Culture Excellence. It is the sixth article in a Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes theme issue presenting a comprehensive government strategy for improving food safety management standards across the hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach – A case study is used to demonstrate the impact of auditing the 16 dimensions of Food Safety Culture Excellence in practice. The business selected was the first in Abu Dhabi to achieve regulatory compliance for HACCP-based food safety management, and the first to conduct a Food Safety Culture Excellence audit in the United Arab Emirates. Findings – This article demonstrates how the concept of food safety culture works in practice, using the Food Safety Culture Excellence Model with four categories and 16 dimensions. It demonstrates how the auditing of culture within a business can highlight strengths and weaknesses and facilitate continual improvement. Originality/value – The article represents the first published model of Food Safety Culture Excellence, an extensively researched and tested model developed by Taylor Shannon International Ltd. and launched in conjunction with Campden BRI in 2014. It also demonstrates the first audit of the model in practice.

scholarly journals Plesiomonas: A Review on Food Safety, Fish-Borne Diseases, and Tilapia

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Alejandro De Jesús Cortés-Sánchez ◽  
Luis Daniel Espinosa-Chaurand ◽  
Mayra Díaz-Ramirez ◽  
Erika Torres-Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Fundamental Property ◽  
Gastrointestinal Diseases ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Plesiomonas Shigelloides ◽  
Food Borne ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Public Health Challenge ◽  
And Control

Fish and fish products are considered a fundamental part of the human diet due to their high nutritional value. Food-borne diseases are considered a major public health challenge worldwide due to their incidence, associated mortality, and negative economic repercussions. Food safety is the guarantee that foods will not cause harm to the health of those who consume them, and it is a fundamental property of food quality. Food safety can be at risk of being lost at any stage of the food chain if the food is contaminated by pathogenic microorganisms. Many diverse bacteria are present in the environment and as part of the microbiota of food that can be transmitted to humans during the handling and consumption of food. Plesiomonas shigelloides has been mainly associated with outbreaks of gastrointestinal diseases due to the consumption of fish. This bacterium inhabits the environment and aquatic animals and is associated with the microbiota of fish such as tilapia, a fish of importance in fishing, aquaculture, commercialization, and consumption worldwide. The purpose of this document is to provide, through a bibliographic review of databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, among others), a general informative perspective on food-borne diseases and, in particular, the consumption of fish and tilapia. Diseases derived from contamination by Plesiomonas shigelloides are included, and control and prevention actions and sanitary regulations for fishery products established in several countries around the world are discussed to promote the safety of foods of aquatic origin intended for human consumption and to protect public health.

Standard Food Safety Practices From Receiving to Cleaning in the Restaurant

2022 ◽  
pp. 123-150
Author(s):  
Suzita Ramli ◽  
Jun Xian Wong
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Food Storage ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Cross Contamination ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Safety Practices ◽  
And Storage

Transmission of hazardous materials could be aggravated by inappropriate handling and storage practices. This results in cross-contamination to foodstuff or cooking utensils. The introduced hazards in the food supply chain might lead to client and reputation loss. The implementation of food safety is necessary to secure safety concerns. All employees should take initiative to be aware and have good attitudes regarding proper hygiene and sanitary practices to assure their product integrity and safety for human consumption. Therefore, this chapter delivered the appropriate and standard food safety protocols to all individuals involved in food storage, preparation, and serving. The scope was structured into (1) identification of hazardous ingredients, (2) purchasing and receiving raw materials, (3) transporting and storage, (4) cooking and reheating, (5) food serving and displaying, (6) leftover storage, and (7) cleaning and sanitation.

Mining Property-driven Graphical Explanations for Data-centric AI from Argumentation Frameworks

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-113
Author(s):  
Oana Cocarascu ◽  
Kristijonas Cyras ◽  
Antonio Rago ◽  
Francesca Toni
Keyword(s):  
Regulatory Compliance ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Societal Benefits ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Media ◽  
Computational Argumentation

Adoption of AI-equipped systems and their societal benefits are heavily dependent on human understanding of the rationale behind the systems’ outputs. Such systems’ widespread inability to explain their outputs causes human mistrust and doubts regarding their regulatory compliance. Research in psychology points to the amenability of argumentation as a paradigm for human reasoning, advocating that humans developed reasoning in order to argue. We here overview a number of approaches using computational argumentation frameworks as the scaffolding for explanations for human consumption. Our argumentation frameworks are automatically mined from data and data-centric methods. We define explanations as graphs obtained from these argumentation frameworks, which are customisable by means of properties. We illustrate our methods with various consumer-oriented tasks in the media and entertainment industry, providing reasoning outputs that can be explained to consumers, and that consumers can directly interact with to give rise to improved recommendations.

scholarly journals Inventory of microbial species with a rationale: a comparison of the IDF/EFFCA inventory of microbial food cultures with the EFSA Biohazard Panel qualified presumption of safety

2019 ◽  
Vol 366 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. i83-i88
Author(s):  
F Bourdichon ◽  
S Laulund ◽  
P Tenning
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Chain ◽  
European Food Safety Authority ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Microbial Species ◽  
Food Cultures ◽  
Food And Feed ◽  
Microbial Strains ◽  
International Dairy Federation

ABSTRACT In order to provide a harmonised preassessment to support risk assessment performed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Biohazard Panel in 2007 published guidelines for evaluation of the safety of a strain included in the food chain, the Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS). Since 2008, the Biohazard Panel has published on a regular basis an update of the microbial strains submitted for approval and extends the list of species which have been granted QPS status. The International Dairy Federation (IDF) and the European Food and Feed Cultures Association (EFFCA) have, since 2002, been conducting a project on the safety demonstration of microbial food cultures (MFCs). Following the publication of IDF Bulletin 377–2002, an inventory of MFCs was published in IDF Bulletin 455–2012 and updated most recently in IDF Bulletin 495–2018. These two lists developed by EFSA (QPS) and IDF/EFFCA both propose as an outcome an inventory of microbial species that are safe for human consumption. To avoid confusion when these two inventories are compared, this review attempts to explain the rationale that was used to develop them and explain how the two lists should be understood.

scholarly journals TORC1 Inhibition Induces Lipid Droplet Replenishment in Yeast

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana B. Madeira ◽  
Claudio A. Masuda ◽  
Clarissa M. Maya-Monteiro ◽  
Gabriel Soares Matos ◽  
Mónica Montero-Lomelí ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Growth Inhibition ◽  
Neutral Lipid ◽  
Nitrogen Availability ◽  
Regulatory Protein ◽  
Secondary Response ◽  
Lipid Homeostasis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Regulatory Pathways ◽  
Downstream Effectors ◽  
Mtorc1 Pathway

Lipid droplets (LDs) are intracellular structures that regulate neutral lipid homeostasis. In mammals, LD synthesis is inhibited by rapamycin, a known inhibitor of the mTORC1 pathway. InSaccharomyces cerevisiae, LD dynamics are modulated by the growth phase; however, the regulatory pathways involved are unknown. Therefore, we decided to study the role of the TORC1 pathway on LD metabolism inS. cerevisiae. Interestingly, rapamycin treatment resulted in a fast LD replenishment and growth inhibition. The discovery that osmotic stress (1 M sorbitol) also induced LD synthesis but not growth inhibition suggested that the induction of LDs in yeast is not a secondary response to reduced growth. The induction of LDs by rapamycin was due to increased triacylglycerol but not sterol ester synthesis. Induction was dependent on the TOR downstream effectors, the PP2A-related phosphatase Sit4p and the regulatory protein Tap42p. The TORC1-controlled transcriptional activators Gln3p, Gat1p, Rtg1p, and Rtg3p, but not Msn2p and Msn4p, were required for full induction of LDs by rapamycin. Furthermore, we show that the deletion of Gln3p and Gat1p transcription factors, which are activated in response to nitrogen availability, led to abnormal LD dynamics. These results reveal that the TORC1 pathway is involved in neutral lipid homeostasis in yeast.

scholarly journals Edible insects unlikely to contribute to transmission of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Dicke ◽  
J. Eilenberg ◽  
J. Falcao Salles ◽  
A.B. Jensen ◽  
A. Lecocq ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Microbial Pathogens ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Edible Insects ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Livestock Species ◽  
Potential Source ◽  
Pathogenic Viruses

In the context of food safety, edible insects are evaluated for biological hazards such as microbial pathogens according to regulations currently in place. When the European Food Safety Authority evaluated the hazards of edible insects as a potential source of pathogenic viruses for humans and livestock, the novel zoonotic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had not yet emerged but other pathogenic coronaviruses such as SARS (SARS-CoV) and MERS (MERS-CoV) were known. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, animal sources of protein for human consumption are being evaluated for the risks of being a transmission vector of coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV-2. Insects lack a receptor that can bind SARS-CoV-2, thus preventing the virus from replicating in insects, unlike some vertebrate livestock species and companion animals. Despite extensive monitoring, coronaviruses have never been recorded in insect microbiomes. Contamination of insects produced for food or feed may occur during the production process, resulting from rearing substrate or from insect farmers. However, the currently permitted rearing substrates do not include animal products and the farming process is highly automated, thus limiting interactions between farmers and insects. If contamination would still occur, the fact that the insects in production are not hosts to SARS-CoV-2 precludes virus replication and the further processing of the insects will destroy the contamination. We conclude that the hazard of edible insects being a transmission vector of SARS-CoV-2 is extremely low.

A simple test to detect sulphur deficiency in wheat

1982 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 443 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Moss ◽  
PJ Randall ◽  
CW Wrigley
Keyword(s):  
Phosphate Buffer ◽  
Colour Change ◽  
Simple Test ◽  
Wheat Grain ◽  
Colour Intensity ◽  
Breadmaking Quality ◽  
Sulphur Deficiency ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Low Sulfur ◽  
Colour Classes

Wheat grain from sulfur-adequate plants remains straw yellow in colour when soaked in glutaraldehyde, but grain from sulfur-deficient plants turns brown or purplish brown. This observation is the basis of a proposed test to identify low-sulfur grain samples, and thus to identify sites requiring sulfur fertilizer. The colour formed during treatment with 4% glutaraldehyde in pH 6.8 phosphate buffer is ranked zero (no colour change), 1, 2 or 3 (maximum colour intensity). A glutaraldehyde score is then awarded on the basis of the percentage of grains in each of these four colour classes. Scores range from 0 to 300 with sulfur-deficient samples having scores > 100. The glutaraldehyde score was highly correlated with N/S ratio in the grain (v = 0.88***) and negatively correlated with percentage sulfur in the grain (r = -0.60** *). In a program to identify wheat-grain samples which are deficient in sulfur for breadmaking quality or yield, the glutaraldehyde test could be used in preliminary sorting to identify those samples requiring further testing.

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