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Chemical contaminants in foods: Understanding and managing risks

Code: 9781835450505
Publication Date: 23/12/2025
Extent: 600 pages
Series No: 172

Edited by Dr Rob Theelen

Description

Diet has consistently been shown to be the dominant source of exposure to the majority of contaminants that pose a threat to human health. However, there is concern that current methods for detection, analysis and risk assessment of chemical residues in food may not accurately reflect the complex cocktail of contaminants to which different groups may be exposed.

Chemical contaminants in foods: Understanding and managing risks provides a comprehensive overview of new approach methodologies with the potential to identify and assess health risks from chemicals in food or feed more accurately and rapidly, including human biomonitoring, advances in-vitro cell culture and in-silico methods and physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models. The book also considers how techniques such as adverse outcome pathways can inform more sophisticated, next-generation risk assessments to better protect the health of different groups in the population.

Key Features

  • Provides a comprehensive overview of the major types of contaminants in food, including environmental and process contaminants, as well as natural toxins
  • Reviews the establishment of major international and EU food safety frameworks
  • Addresses recent advances in techniques for monitoring and detecting chemical contaminants in food

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Table of Contents

Part 1 Current principles and systems

  • 1.The global framework for food chemical risk assessment: Verna Carolissen Mackay, Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme, Italy;
  • 2.The role of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in food chemical risk assessment: Angeliki Vlachou, FAO, Italy;
  • 3.Chemical contaminants in food: key issues in exposure assessment: Rob Theelen, Food Safety Portal, The Netherlands;

Part 2 Developments in risk assessment: Hazard identification/characterisation and exposure assessment

  • 4.Advances in techniques for monitoring/detecting chemical contaminants in food: chromatography: Tadeusz Gorecki, University of Waterloo, Canada;
  • 5.Advances in techniques for detecting chemical contaminants in food: electrochemical biosensors: Daniel Cozzolino, Central Queensland University, Australia;
  • 6.The use of effect biomarkers to assess potential effects of exposure to chemical residues from food and other sources: Gaud Dervilly, Oniris Nantes, France;
  • 7.Understanding the role of diet as a source of potentially harmful chemicals: Bozidar Udovicki, University of Belgrade, Serbia;
  • 8.Advances in human biomonitoring to assess levels of dietary exposure to potentially harmful chemicals from food or other sources: Pascal Sanders, ANSES, France;

Part 3 Developments in risk assessments: Risk characterisation

  • 9.Developments in toxicokinetic modelling of chemical residues ingested through food: Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece;
  • 10.The use of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) to link molecular changes to adverse health outcomes/effects related to chemical residues from foods: Mathieu Vinken, Vrije University, Brussels (VUB), Belgium;
  • 11.Developments in in-silico tools for safety/risk assessment of chemical residues in food: Szabina Stice, Centre for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition – Food and Drug Administration, USA;

Part 4 Environmental and processing contaminants and natural toxins

  • 12.Advances in assessing heavy metal residues in food: Britt Maestroni, Food and Environmental Protection (FEP) – IAEA, Austria;
  • 13.Advances in assessing flame retardant residues in food: Gary Codling, University of Exeter, UK;
  • 14.Advances in assessing residues of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in foods: Thimo Groffen, University of Antwerp, Belgium;
  • 15.Assessing microplastics and nanoplastics in food: Alfonso Lampen, Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Germany;
  • 16.Contaminants related to high-temperature processing of food: Hoonjeong Kwon, Seoul National University, Korea)
  • 17.Assessing pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) in food: Isabel Sierra, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain;
  • 18.Assessing tropane alkaloids (TAs) in food: Anna Sanches Silva, University of Coimbra, Portugal;
About the Editor(s)

Dr Rob Theelen has worked for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Dr Theelen was formerly Technical Assistant to the Chair of the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Food. He is involved in the EU Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) Initiative, the European Commission (EC) Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) Platform, and manages the Food Safety Portal supporting chemical risk management and assessment.

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