FOOD SAFETY—FACTS AND FALLACIES

Assurance of safety of foods is a paramount issue involving populations over long periods of time. Many aspects of food safety are discussed by the press and public in the emotional plane and in somewhat irrational manner. All foods are chemicals; and there is no special sanctity about ingesting naturally occurring chemicals. Indeed there occurs a number of toxicants in many natural foods. Over a period of time food technology has contributed to the preservation of the nutrient quality and naturalness of foods avoiding spoilage and deterioration of organoleptic quality. Often 'single issue' crusades extolling the importance of specific dietary ingredients or deprecating their widespread consumption are carried on with too much rhetoric and too little dispassionate judgement. Further, safety of food will be determined by human physiology related to issues of detoxification, excretion and metabolic elimination, etc. in the animal system, rather than by the ability to provide more sensitive methods of analysis. Ultimately, food safety is a matter of policy based on judgements of risk and benefits rather than measurements alone.