Exposure to substances via food consumption

Abstract

Many substances enter the human body via the consumption of food, and this can account for a large amount of the consumer exposures to particular substances. According to the views of Lioy and co-authors (2013) and as pointed out in Sect. 3.2.5, food is not always the primary source of substances for consumers, because the origin is in the general environment. From this view, in the EU guidance documents for exposure assessment, food presents a pathway of exposure for the environmental exposure of humans. In standard food exposure evaluations, however, and from practical reasons, food is deemed as the (primary) source. The impact of the food chain for consumer exposure is pointed out in this Sect. 4.12. In addition, substances called process contaminants that may be formed from constituents in the food during the process of preparation of meals are having an increasing impact on food risk assessment.