Title: A brief introduction to novel food macromolecules
Abstract: Innovation in food production has a long history. For more than a hundred years new food products and processes have developed continuously in the Western world. This pace of innovation has accelerated during the past two decades. The need to satisfy nutritional, technological, and quality requirements of the consumer is often stated as the driving force behind the pursuit of novelty, although competition among the food companies and profit maximization have certainly had a profound influence. Certain regulation guidelines aim to cover all new materials, new products, and modifications of processing methods that could expose the consumer to food ingredients to which he or she has not up to now been subjected to a significant extent. Therefore, the guidelines are intended to assist the manufacturer in the preparation of adequate documentation of data required to support a petition for a novel product, to design a range of tests appropriate to each case, and to provide guidance to European government authorities in their job to assess the safety of novel foods and food ingredients. The concept of novelty, therefore, is determined by what has not been hitherto consumed in significant quantities and by the possibility of introducing toxic contaminants, antinutrients, or other types of hazards. In this context, a number of physical modifications—such as the denaturation of proteins by heat or mechanical treatment or new presentations of commonly used ingredients in product development, as is the case of low-fat spreads and soft cheeses—should not be considered as novel, because there is no real potential for introducing a hazard.
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
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