Premium
An update of US food safety, food technology, GM food and water protection and management legislation
Author(s) -
Arvanitoyannis Ioannis S.,
Tserkezou Persefoni,
Varzakas Theodoros
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of food science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.831
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1365-2621
pISSN - 0950-5423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.01266.x
Subject(s) - legislation , food safety , business , hazard analysis and critical control points , european union , food packaging , agricultural science , food science , international trade , political science , law , environmental science , biology
Summary US government was the first to introduce Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, the system that had a tremendous impact on everybody's life starting from the food and packaging companies up to consumer themselves. The rest of the nations simply followed US approach with a considerable delay both in terms of legislation and implementation. In the case of genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered foods, the situation was entirely different. United States benefited from the ‘dubious’, and definitely not proved, ‘substantial equivalence’ principle invoked as the most practical approach to assess the safety of GM foods and food ingredients. US legislation appeared to be considerably more lenient than the European Union. The latter required many more analyses and labelling of GM food or food components. In this article, an update is attempted of the entire US legislation falling in fields like food safety, food technology, GM foods and finally legislation referring to specific foods (animal origin – meat, poultry, fish, dairy; and agricultural produces – vegetables, fruits) and water quality by means of fourteen comprehensive tables.