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What is Food Safety?
Over the years and with the increase in consumer awareness of the possible consequences and adverse health effects of their food, consumers tend to increase their preference for less processed foods with higher nutritional quality. In turn, the industry is systematically changing in order to meet what the consumer is looking for, however, there is a set of safety requirements that must be met, so that health and consumer welfare are always safeguarded.
Food Safety aims to prevent food contamination by biological hazards (eg bacteria, parasites), chemicals (eg pesticides, antibiotics), or physical agents (glass fragments, metal, bones), in order to guarantee the quality of the food and prevent any adverse effect on the health of those who consume it. Food Safety is based on the Codex Alimentarius.
Codex Alimentarius
The Codex Alimentarius brings together a set of international standards, directives, and recommendations that aim to promote food safety, and consumer protection and ensure fair practices in the food trade. Food contaminants are defined as “any substance not intentionally added to food and present in it as a result of its production, manufacturing, processing, packaging and/or transport chain”.
On September 25th 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. How is Codex working to achieve these goals?
How to ensure food safety
In order to ensure that food is more likely to be safe and suitable for consumption, the general objectives of the Codex Alimentarius on food hygiene should be based on: ensuring that throughout the food chain ( from production to arrival at the final consumer) all fundamental food hygiene principles are complied with; ensure equitable practices in the food trade, recommending the implementation of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) system in order to mitigate risks in the food industry and induce a systematic preventive approach to improve food safety; and provide information and guidance applicable to each sector of the food production chain in order to facilitate international food trade.
Safe Food
Thus, since the main function of food is the provision of chemical structures that allow the maintenance of the vital functions of the organism, it is essential that the nutritional quality and the good state of the food are ensured.
Marlene Silva
References
Alimentarius, C. (2015). Higiene dos Alimentos-Textos Básicos. 2006.
Juul, F., Vaidean, G., & Parekh, N. (2021). Ultra-processed foods and cardiovascular diseases: potential mechanisms of action. Advances in Nutrition, 12(5), 1673-1680.
Liu, F., Rhim, H., Park, K., Xu, J., & Lo, C. K. (2021). HACCP certification in food industry: Trade-offs in product safety and firm performance. International Journal of Production Economics, 231, 107838.
Manning L, Soon JM. Food Safety, Food Fraud, and Food Defense: A Fast Evolving Literature. J Food Sci. 2016 Apr;81(4):R823-34. doi: 10.1111/1750-3841.13256. Epub 2016 Mar 2. PMID: 26934423.
https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/sdgs/en/#c459191
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