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Learn how some kitchenware can affect your health
Food safety is highly regulated. Yet, one blind spot is the migration of molecules from contact materials in kitchenware into food. Particular attention needs to be placed on chemicals present at low doses but acting on the endocrine system over a long time.
On this course, you’ll learn about these endocrine disrupters and their potential impact on human health and the environment.
You’ll evaluate how chemicals can migrate from packaging and slowly affect our endocrine health, and how tests can check for safety. Ultimately, you’ll better understand how we can improve food safety in general.
This course is for anyone interested in potential health risks derived from food packaging and kitchenware, and in particular from chemicals migrating from packaging into food and drink.
This could include healthcare workers, parents, pregnant women, and anyone with an interest in health and food safety.
Overview
Syllabus
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- Food packaging, its material and the issue of migration
- What is packaging? What for?
- Chemical analyses and the issue of migration
- The detection of unwanted chemicals in our food
- Verify your learning
- What comes next in Week 2
- Migrating chemicals: is there a health concern?
- Chemical analyses and biological analyses
- The need of statistics and epidemiology when dealing with human
- The suspected action of migrating chemicals on our hormonal health
- Verify your learning
- What comes next in Week 3
- Biotests their use in research and for monitoring
- Biological tests and current reseach on EDC
- How is research on endocrine interference proceeding ?
- Verify your learning
- What comes next in week 4
- Innovations that improve the system
- The search for novel packaging materials - the bioplastics
- Who conducts research? Who pays for it?
- The position of the food industry
- Consumers, Science, Health and Society
- The ideal flow of activity to protect health and environment
- Finding an equilibrium among stakeholders
- The difficult task of the legislator and of regulatory agencies
- Final assessment and 'take home message'
