Abbott Nutrition, 3300 Stelzer Rd, Columbus, OH 43219, USA.
Abbott Nutrition, 1800 South Oak St, Suite 210 Champaign, IL61820, USA.
J AOAC Int. 2022 Mar 15;105(2):333-345. doi: 10.1093/jaoacint/qsac005.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a central part of the joint Food and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organizations Food Standards Program, adopts internationally recognized standards, guidelines, and code of practices that help ensure safety, quality, and fairness of food trade globally. Although Codex standards are not regulations per se, regulatory authorities around the world may benchmark against these standards or introduce them into regulations within their countries. Recently, the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) initiated a draft revision to the Codex standard for follow-up formula (FUF), a drink/product (with added nutrients) for young children, to include requirements for limiting or measuring the amount of sweet taste contributed by carbohydrates in a product. Stakeholders from multiple food and beverage manufacturers expressed concern about the subjectivity of sweetness and challenges with objective measurement for verifying regulatory compliance. It is a requirement that Codex standards include a reference to a suitable method of analysis for verifying compliance with the standard. In response, AOAC INTERNATIONAL formed the Ad Hoc Expert Panel on Sweetness in November 2020 to review human perception of sweet taste, assess the landscape of internationally recognized analytical and sensory methods for measuring sweet taste in food ingredients and products, deliver recommendations to Codex regarding verification of sweet taste requirements for FUF, and develop a scientific opinion on measuring sweet taste in food and beverage products beyond FUF. Findings showed an abundance of official analytical methods for determining quantities of carbohydrates and other sweet-tasting molecules in food products and beverages, but no analytical methods capable of determining sweet taste. Furthermore, sweet taste can be determined by standard sensory analysis methods. However, it is impossible to define a sensory intensity reference value for sweetness, making them unfit to verify regulatory compliance for the purpose of international food trade. Based on these findings and recommendations, the Codex Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling agreed during its 41st session in May 2021 to inform CCNFSDU that there are no known validated methods to measure sweetness of carbohydrate sources; therefore, no way to determine compliance for such a requirement for FUF.
食品法典委员会是粮农组织/世界卫生组织食品标准联合计划的一个核心部分，它通过国际认可的标准、准则和操作规范来帮助确保全球食品贸易的安全、质量和公平性。尽管食品法典标准本身并不是法规，但世界各地的监管机构可能会以这些标准为基准，或者在其本国的法规中引入这些标准。最近，食品法典委员会营养和特殊膳食用食品法典标准委员会（CCNFSDU）启动了修订后续配方（FUF）食品法典标准的草案，FUF 是一种为幼儿提供的饮料/产品（添加了营养物质），其中包括限制或测量产品中碳水化合物产生的甜味的要求。来自多家食品和饮料制造商的利益相关者对甜味的主观性和验证法规遵从性的客观测量表示关注。食品法典标准的要求包括引用一种合适的分析方法来验证标准的遵守情况。作为回应，AOAC 国际于 2020 年 11 月成立了甜味问题特别专家小组，以审查人类对甜味的感知，评估国际上公认的测量食品成分和产品中甜味的分析和感官方法，就 FUF 的甜味要求向食品法典提出建议，并就 FUF 以外的食品和饮料产品中的甜味测量制定科学意见。调查结果表明，有大量的官方分析方法可用于确定食品和饮料产品中碳水化合物和其他甜味分子的数量，但没有能够确定甜味的分析方法。此外，甜味可以通过标准的感官分析方法来确定。然而，无法为甜味确定一个感官强度参考值，因此不适合用于验证国际食品贸易的法规遵从性。基于这些调查结果和建议，食品法典分析方法和采样委员会在 2021 年 5 月第 41 届会议上同意告知 CCNFSDU，目前没有已知的经过验证的方法来测量碳水化合物来源的甜度；因此，无法确定 FUF 中此类要求的合规性。
