Polyaromatic hydrocarbons in food, regulations, and challenges

PAHs as widespread well-known environmental pollutants are formed as consequence of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels that utilized in power and heat generation. They are prevalent in various food products, including, fruit and vegetable, nuts and spices, cereal and confectionary products, dairy products, meat and poultry and related products, marine foods, baby foods, oil and beverage. Entrance, formation and accumulation of PAHs in foods caused either by environmental contamination of food chain or from food processes. Various food processing and cooking, including, baking, smoking, frying, barbecuing, roasting, drying and roasting can be effective in formation of PAHs in food stuff. Dietary intake of PAHs is the major route of human exposure for non-smokers and non-occupational individuals. Based on the occurrence and carcinogenicity, ۱۶ PAHs has been selected by United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) as the main contaminants in food sources. Due to the proven carcinogenic effects of a number of PAHs, the presence of these toxic compounds in food should be minimized. Therefore, avoid environmental pollution as much as possible and controlled preparation and cooking processes can be considered as the main strategies to prevent PAHs formation or decrease their content in foods. It is unlikely that the dependence on fossil fuels combustion will be decrease. Therefore, it is difficult to entirely prevent environmental pollution of PAHs and entrance of PAHs into food chain. While, development in mitigating amounts of PAHs in man-made food processing is possible. Using of liquid smoke instead of smoking, using other processing methods such as UV rays, ohmic-heating, and application of activated charcoal in bleaching step of oil refining can be named as examples of this progresses. Furthermore, it is necessary that consumers be aware of the importance ofPAHs, formation and content of them in food products which may requires establishment of a labelling guideline of PAHs in food products.

کلیدواژه ها:

Poly aromatic hydrocarbon ، toxic ، food ، processing ، health effect