Food safety of locally processed agro-food products is a major public health concern in resource-limited settings; in Burkina Faso’s Mouhoun Loop, shea butter, soumbala, honey and other traditional products are key income and nutrition sources for thousands of households, yet their sanitary quality has remained largely undocumented at the production-unit level. This cross-sectional study assessed microbiological and physicochemical quality across nine commodity chains in 107 production units in six provinces, alongside socio-economic profiling. Parameters included moisture, free acidity, peroxide index, total aerobic mesophilic count, total coliforms, and yeasts/moulds, assessed against the Codex Regional Standard for Unrefined Shea Butter (CXS 325R-2017) and other applicable Codex standards. Statistical analysis included Mann-Whitney U tests with rank-biserial effect sizes, Kruskal-Wallis tests, Spearman correlation, PCA, Random Forest variable-importance modelling, Firth penalised logistic regression and leave-one-out cross-validated ROC analysis. Overall compliance was 73.8
The Portuguese population exhibits inadequate levels of folate intake. This study aimed to assess the impact of scenarios of fortification of bread with folic acid and supplementation on the health of the Portuguese population. We applied a risk–benefit approach to assess the potential risks associated with increased exposure to folate/folic acid and the potential benefits associated with a reduction in the incidence of neural tube defects in newborns and in the likelihood of developing megaloblastic anaemia. Based on intake data from the National Food and Physical Activity Survey (2015–2016), we created scenarios with different levels of fortification and use of dietary supplements. We applied a probabilistic stochastic model to calculate the incidence of each health effect, using Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainties. The overall health impact of each scenario was quantified in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and compared with the reference scenario. The results showed that the most beneficial scenario entailed the supplementation of 400 μg/day to women of childbearing age, without fortification, which resulted in a reduction of 1,285 DALYs compared to the reference scenario. We concluded that supplementation aimed at women of childbearing age should be favoured over mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid.
The link between climate change and public health risks due to pathogenic microorganisms has now been established, but it remains crucial to put in place food safety measures to mitigate and control these risks. The objective of this Perspective paper is to present in-silico tools that can facilitate microbiological food safety management in the context of climate change. The tools have been illustrated with recent studies to make their applications more tangible. The first tool, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), supports the comparison and ranking of management options according to multiple criteria, including for instance microbiological risk mitigation, environmental impact and stakeholder acceptability. The second, predictive microbiology (PM), uses mathematical models to simulate microbial behaviour under environmental and process conditions and can support scenario analysis. The third, machine learning (ML), uses data-driven algorithms to identify patterns in large datasets and support prediction and classification. Although their underlying methodologies are established to varying extents, their climate-related applications in microbiological food safety remain predominantly research-based. The MCDA, PM and ML tools perform distinct but complementary functions and can contribute to decision support at different stages of microbiological food safety management and be adopted by different stakeholders. Nevertheless, they differ in terms of methodological complexity, data requirements and degree of operational implementation. Whatever the tool, its added value depends on the quality and representativeness of the available data, model validity, appropriate consideration of uncertainty, and the ability of users to interpret the outputs within their intended context. Multicriteria decision analysis, predictive microbiology and machine learning are valuable tools in food safety management. These tools support ranking, simulation, scenario analysis, prediction or classification, depending on the climate related question. Their usefulness depends on the application context, data quality, model validity, validation and uncertainty. In-silico tools remain aids to decision-making but cannot, on their own, guarantee food safety.
The widespread use of non-food-grade paper for food packaging in developing countries poses an un-recognized public health threat, yet comprehensive assessments of trace element (TE) contamination in such materials remain scarce. This study analyzed 38 paper samples, including newspapers (light-, bold-, and photo-printed areas), magazines, and book papers, commonly used as food wrappers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to quantify seven TEs (As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, Cu, and Mn). Cu and Mn were the most abundant elements (upto 61.9 ppm and 31.7 ppm, respectively), while As, Pb, Cd, and Cr frequently exceeded international safety limits by factors of 2–100. Multivariate analyses revealed material-specific signatures: Newspaper bold-print with As/Pb from high-density inks; Newspaper photo with Cu from copper-phthalocyanine pigments; Magazine with Ni from nickel-based catalysts. Health risk assessment revealed children at significantly higher risk than adults, with Hazard Index (HI) values exceeding the safe threshold (HI > 1) across all paper types (Newspaper Bold: HI Child = 3.962; Magazine: HI Child = 1.774). All four carcinogenic metals (As, Pb, Cd, Cr) exceeded the acceptable cancer risk level (1 × 10⁻⁶), with children exhibiting 2.3× higher risk than adults. However, these cancer risk estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty due to the absence of migration and speciation data. These findings underscore an urgent regulatory gap: Bangladesh lacks national standards for TE content in food-contact papers, allowing continued use of recycled and printed papers laden with toxic elements. We recommend further research, including migration and speciation studies, before considering prohibitions on non-food-grade papers for direct food wrapping, alongside mandatory certification of food-contact materials, and vendor education campaign.
With the fast growth of industrialization, intensive farming, and urban development, environmental pollution has evolved into a major global challenge. The poor handling, bad control, or inadequate management of waste and effluents from households, industries, and agricultural fields has been harming the ecosystem. Consequently, the development of effective, economically feasible, and sustainable remediation strategies has emerged as a key research priority in environmental biotechnology. Mycoremediation is a fungal based clean-up approach that exploits the capabilities of fungi such as biodegradation, biosorption, enzymatic detoxification, and symbiotic interactions. The broad spectrum of pollutants and contaminants introduced into nature without sufficient oversight, endangers global health, long-term environmental degradation and bioaccumulation in organisms, water, air, and diets. Food contamination may entail biological, chemical, physical, or allergenic agents that can taint edible material and most research focused primarily on the detection of chemical food safety hazards. Since 2000 the European Commission launched environmental compliance legislation to limit both their utilization and environmental release. Eco-friendly, sustainable and cost-effective technologies and solutions have been proposed as alternative choices, including treatments manipulating bacteria or fungi. In this narrative review we provide an overview on fungi as tools for the remediation of a plethora of chemicals such as xenobiotics, endocrine disruptor chemicals, synthetic dyes, micro- and nanoplastics, heavy metals, mycotoxins, dioxins, and metabolic modifiers, towards their degradation and neutralisation. The harmful effects of these hazards need mitigation through innovative, efficient, and sustainable decontamination strategies. A comprehensive and critical synthesis of the mechanisms underlying mycoremediation is provided, with particular emphasis on ligninolytic and oxidative enzymatic pathways, fungal metabolic functions, and pollutant specific transformation processes. Fungi have a reciprocal interplay with the hormonal system affecting homeostasis and it is evident that there are still many unaddressed gaps and technological opportunities that will need to be addressed before its recognition and approval. Mycoremediation of food hazards remains in its initial stages due to strict safety regulations and the risk of potential toxic by-product accumulation. Chemical contaminants degrade the ecosystem and jeopardise human health. Bioremediation is an eco-friendly strategy to mitigate environmental pollutants. An array of fungal species displays a broad-spectrum mycoremediation capacity. Challenges remain on underlying mechanisms tailored for food scale applications.
