Garino Cristiano, Mielke Hans, Knüppel Sven, Selhorst Thomas, Broll Hermann, Braeuning Albert
German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), P.O. Box 33 00 13, D-14191, Berlin, Germany.
German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), P.O. Box 33 00 13, D-14191, Berlin, Germany.
Food Chem Toxicol. 2020 Aug;142:111460. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2020.111460. Epub 2020 Jun 4.
Insect-based foods are starting to enter the EU market, raising concerns about their safety. Allergic consumers might be exposed to even a greater risk, since insects have proven to trigger allergic symptoms, particularly in patients sensitised to crustaceans. Current legislation does not enforce producers to include insects in the list of allergenic ingredients. Food allergenicity risk assessment (FARA) is still at its infancy, and the debate on the need to define allergen thresholds is open. In this paper, we aimed at applying the concepts of stochastic quantitative FARA to describe present and future scenarios of exposure to foods containing Tenebrio molitor, the yellow mealworm. According to our risk characterisation, mealworm-based food products represent a major risk for individuals allergic to crustaceans to develop symptoms after the consumption of a dose lower than a serving size. Moreover, other allergic consumers might be at risk. A correct labelling of insect containing foods would help safeguarding the health of EU allergic consumers. Quantitatively assessing the risk of allergenicity provides a clear description of the problem, facilitating the decisional process of the risk manager, supporting the implementation of effective allergen management procedures and limiting the phenomenon of uninformative precautionary labelling.
以昆虫为原料的食品开始进入欧盟市场，引发了人们对其安全性的担忧。过敏的消费者可能面临更大的风险，因为昆虫已被证明会引发过敏症状，尤其是在对甲壳类动物敏感的患者中。现行法规并未强制生产商将昆虫列入致敏成分清单。食品过敏风险评估（FARA）仍处于起步阶段，关于是否需要定义过敏原阈值的争论仍在进行。在本文中，我们旨在应用随机定量FARA的概念来描述食用含有黄粉虫（Tenebrio molitor）的食品的当前和未来暴露情况。根据我们的风险特征描述，以黄粉虫为原料的食品对甲壳类动物过敏的个体来说，在食用低于一份量的剂量后出现症状的风险很大。此外，其他过敏消费者也可能面临风险。对含有昆虫的食品进行正确标注将有助于保障欧盟过敏消费者的健康。定量评估过敏风险能清晰地描述问题，有助于风险管理者的决策过程，支持有效过敏原管理程序的实施，并限制无信息预防性标注的现象。
