Risk assessment of chemicals in European traditional foods

The principles of risk assessment of chemicals in food are briefly presented and summaries of assessments of representative chemicals found in the European traditional foods are given. In addition, new developments in various areas of the risk assessment are presented, such as subdivision of the safety factor, susceptibility of infants and children to chemicals, risk assessment of compounds that are both genotoxic and carcinogenic, the concept of threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) now being used in the assessment of flavouring substances, and some remarks on excursions above the acceptable daily intake (ADI).