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How Does FDA Ensure Food Does Not Contain Harmful Chemicals?
(Thursday, April 4, 2024) Almost all discussions about food-borne illnesses focus on pathogens such as bacteria that may contaminate our food, but what about harmful chemicals? Chemical poisoning may take longer to show symptoms and may cause long-term health issues. However, the FDA has an active and robust program to prevent chemical poisoning from food consumed in the US. The public must be aware of this program to prevent misinformation about harmful chemicals in food. All food is composed of chemicals; these are the nutrients that our body needs, and other factors such as molecules such as sodium, calcium, and iron, and vitamins, proteins, and other factors that support our body’s sustenance and functions. However, food could be contaminated with harmful chemicals from the environment where they are grown or harvested from or man-made pollutants such as those from industrial emissions and pollution. Most of these contaminants are impossible to eliminate completely, but their amounts can be reduced to a level where their harm is contained. Hence, there are laws about good agricultural, collection, and manufacturing practices to establish conditions that would create safe food. The safety of food from harmful chemicals is directly proportional to the level of these in the food and the amount of food consumed by an average person. The FDA has a program to test levels of known and suspected harmful chemicals in food products which forms the basis of its “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” published every five years. The FDA program called “Total Diet Study” (TDS), involves FDA researchers buying food from retail outlets, then preparing the food as people typically would, and then testing the food for various chemical contents. To scientifically assess the safety amount of a chemical in food, the FDA researchers base their calculations on the amount of a given food product likely consumed by an individual in a day to determine the Acceptable Daily Intake, thereby ensuring that the exposure levels are much lower than that known to have possible adverse effects. The FDA study leads to its periodic Total Diet Study Report that lists the findings from its TDS and becomes the basis for setting the permitted levels of chemicals in food. The FDA blog this week describes the above program and should be widely published to make consumers aware of the amazing work done by the FDA researchers in the background of the safety recommendations from the FDA to ensure that the food we consume is safe. 
AUTHOR
Dr. Mukesh Kumar Founder & CEO, FDAMap Email: [email protected] Linkedin: Mukesh Kumar, PhD, RAC Instagram: mukeshkumarrac Twitter: @FDA_MAP Youtube: MukeshKumarFDAMap |
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