Saturday, July 12, 2008

1.4 Consumers' right

Consumers have the right to know what they are buying and eating. It is very important to know what you are eating and thereby make informed choice from there. However, not all the consumers have the access to information to allow them to make informed choices about GM food. This is especially so in developing countries where the man and woman are poor and not educated, they do not have the fundamental information about GM food and to make informed choices.

There are 2 main areas which the consumers are very concern: Food safety of GM food and Labelling of GM food.

1.4.1 Food safety of GM food

Consumers had some experience with non-GM food regarding their safety such as allergens, microbiological contaminants,etc. This makes them more particular and concern about the safety of GM food. Besides that, health issues such as allergens and the transfer of genes to human is still debating. And no one has ever confirmed about these. Thereby, consumers has the right to know what are the ingredients in the GM food.

1.4.2 Labelling of GM food

Label is an important component that provide detailed information about the food itself. When products are labelled sufficiently, it will allow the consumers to make informed choices based on other issues such as environmental concerns, etc. In fact, through surveys, it reflects that most consumers would like to know what they are eating, and agrees that mandatory labelling should be introduced in all countries. The consumers international organization holds a campaign in 2005 which wants all GM products to be labelled, follow international safety standards and take action to protect non-GM crops. This is because consumers' right should be respected.

Reference
1. Genetically modified organisms, consumers, food safety and the environment. FAO Ethics Series. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/003/X9602e/X9602e00.pdf; accessed on 9th July 2008
2. Consumers Say No To GMOs. Consumers International. http://www.consumersinternational.org/Templates/News.asp?NodeID=90502; accessed on 10th July 2008

Sunday, June 22, 2008

GM food has become more common, however, the controversies related to it is still important and still debating.
1. Controversies

1.1 Health issue
There are some effects on health of gm food. They are the allergens in gm food which causes allergies and transfer of antibiotic resistance markers to human body. Though genetic modification provides a chance to reduce or even eliminate the protein allergens that were found naturally in food. Though gm products have its own advantage, it may also add allergens to the food.
One such example is the Brazil nut allergens. A methionine-producing gene from Brazil nut is introduced into soybean to improve its nutrient content. Before these soybean was markets, test on allergens were carried out. It was found that the consumption of transgenic soybean could cause allergenic results in some individuals. This incident has increased the awareness about the possible risks associated with genetic modification food.

1.2 Environmental issue
Some very important and common impacts on the environment are "unintended tranfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on soil microbes, loss of flora and fauna biodiversity".
One example of unintended transfer of genes through cross-pollination. Monarch are the butterflies that feed on milkweed. However, when milkweeds are planted beside Bt maize, the milkweeds were covered with pollen. Monarch butterfly larvaes feed on these milkweeds and died. The death of these Monarch butterfly larvaes is due to the toxin that is transferred from the Bt maize to the milkweeds.

1.3 Ethical issue
GM food includes the combination of genes from different organisms or the transfer of genes from one source such as animals to food. Many is still debating about the issue of violating nature. Other than this, many concerns are "violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values, objections to consuming animal genes in plants and the stress caused on animals".

Reference
1. Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms. Human Genome Project Information. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml; accessed on 7th June 2008
2. Genetically modified organisms, consumers, food safety and the environment. FAO Ethics Series. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/003/X9602e/X9602e00.pdf; accessed on 9th July 2008
Due to the increasing world population, it is essential to seek ways to ensure an adequate food supply for the population.

GM foods help to solve this issue in a few ways:

1. Advantages of GM food

1.1 Pest Resistance
1.2 Herbicide Resistance
1.3 Disease Resistance
1.4 Cold tolerance
1.5 Drug tolerance/ salinity tolerance
1.6 Improved nutrition
1.7 Pharmaceuticals
1.8 Phytoremediation

Saturday, June 7, 2008

What is mycotoxin?
Mycotoxin is secondary metabolite produced by microfungi that are capable of causing disease and death in humans or other animals.
All mycotoxins has low molecular weight, and they are natural products produced as secondary metabolites by filamentous fungi.

Mycotoxin caused a serious problem in 1962, during an incident near London which about 100000 turkeys died. This incident was found out to be due to the consumption of peanut meal which is contaminated with secondary metabolites from Aspergillus flavus. Since then, researchers have come to know that many other metabolites can also be dangerous to human beings.

Classification of mycotoxin
Usually arrange by the organ they affect. Mycotoxin are classified as followed:
Hepatotoxin, nephrotoxin, neurotoxin, immunotoxin, etc. Followed which would be the classification into generic groups such as teratogens, mutagens, carcinogens and allergens.

Examples of common mycotoxins
1.1 Aflatoxins
There are 4 major types of aflatoxins: B1, B2, G1 and G2 based on their fluorescence under UV light and relative chromatographic mobility. Aflatoxin B1 is the most dangerous natural carcinogen known and is the most common produced by toxicgenic strains.

1.2 Citrinin
It is being identified in many species of Penicillium and several species of Aspergillus. It is often associated with yellow rice disease in Japan. It is also one of the reason for porcine nephropathy. Wheat, oats, rye, corn, barley and rice are the sources of citrinin.

There are also many other mycotoxins, and the major one also includes ergot alkaloids, fumonisins, ochratoxin, patulin, trichothecenes and zearalenone.

Reference
1. J. W. Bennett and M. Klich. Mycotoxins. American Society for Microbiology, Clinicl Microbiology Reviews (July 2003) http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=164220; accessed on 1st June 2008

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Introduction

What is GMO?
GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism. They are plants, animals or bacteria that have one or few selected genes from other organisms introduced into them through the use of modern gene technology.

What is GM food?
Food that are derived from GMO or contain one or more GMO, are known as GM food.

Plants have been modified in the laboratory to create desired traits such as increased resistance to pesticides or improved nutritional content. Originally, food has been modified using the plant breeding method. However, this method is very time consuming and it does not produce accurate results. Thereby, Genetic Engineering is used. It helps to create plants with the exact trait rapidly and with high accuracy.

Reference
1. E To H On Food Safety. Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore. (24th March 2006) http://www.ava.gov.sg/FoodSector/FoodSafetyEducation/Food+Facts/E+to+H+on+Food+Safety/index.htm; accessed on 1st June 2008

2. Genetically Modified Foods: Helpful or Harmful? Deborah B. Whitman. (April 2000) http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php; accessed on 1st June 2008

Monday, May 26, 2008

1.4 Establish monitoring procedures

The purpose of establishing a monitoring system is to control your CCP, and prevent it from exceeding the critical limit. It has to be established immediately after the ccp is identified to adjust and to maintain control. A good monitoring system should answer the following questions: Who, What, How and the Frequency of monitoring.
Monitoring methods vary, depending on the control measures and critical limits.

1.5 Establish corrective actions

It has 2 purposes.
1. Provide an immediate action to make the food safe for consumption
2. To prevent the problem from happening again

If monitoring shows that there is a deviation from an established critical limit, either beyond or below it, it means that corrective actions have to be implemented. It is actually a set of preventive actions to correct the problem before food safety issue arises. Once again, corrective actions vary, depending on the control measures and critical limits.

References
1. Ensuring Safe Food- A HACCP-Based Plan for Ensuring Food Safety in Retail Establishments. The Ohio State University. http://ohioline.osu.edu/b901/chapter_7.html; accessed on 26th May 2008

2. HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points). City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council. http://www.bradford.gov.uk/health_well-being_and_care/food_and_drink/Food+Safety+-+New+Businesses/HACCP+(Hazard+Analysis+Critical+Control+Points).htm; accessed on 26th May 2008

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

1. CCP
1.1 What is a CCP?
CCP is a step or procedure in the food process at which control needs to be applied, resulting is the prevention or elimination of food hazard.

1.2 Identification of CCP?
After a hazard analysis is done for the product, we would then proceed with the CCP decision tree. A sequence of 5 questions would be answered to determine whether the CP is a CCP.
However, CCP differ depends on the different products. A particular process step maybe essential for us to control, however, a subsequent step will be used to eliminate the hazard. Thereby, it is no longer critical for us to control it.
A food product should not have many CCP, because it is not pausible. More CCP means that more process steps have to be controlled, it would be time-consuming and hectic to do so.

1.3 Critical limit of CCP
It is the maximum or minimum value at which a particular hazard would be controlled to prevent or reduce the incidence of food safety hazard to an acceptable level.

Examples of critical limit: Cooking temperature, storage temperature, time, etc.

I have basically covered the 2nd and 3rd principle for HACCP. I would continue to cover the remaining 4 principles at my next post.

References
1. Ensuring Safe Food- A HACCP-Based Plan for Ensuring Food Safety in Retail Establishments. The Ohio State University. http://ohioline.osu.edu/b901/chapter_6.html#2; accessed on 6th May 2008

2. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Principles and Application Guidelines. U. S. Food & Drug Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture, National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. (August 14th 1997) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/nacmcfp.html; accessed on 6th May 2008