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Nanotechnology in Food? — the origin of misunderstandings in a nutshell
Published: Thursday 19 February 2009
The discussion of nanotechnology in food is surrounded by misunderstandings and confusion; an article on the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) website of the European Commission summarises some of the confusion and facts:
In an interview with Dr Herrmann Stamm from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), the article clarifies that ‘foods containing artificial nanomaterials are not on sale in Europe, although they are available over the Internet.’
‘Dr Stamm was involved in an EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) group that recently released a draft opinion on nanotechnologies in food and feed. They found that current approaches to risk assessment can be applied to nanomaterials, but warned that data on the non-nano versions of substances cannot be extrapolated to the nano-versions. This is because the small size of nanoparticles allows them to move around the body in a different way to larger particles, while their high surface area increases their reactivity. For this reason, risk assessments should be carried out on a case-by-case basis.'
A major difficulty in any discussion about nanotechnologies and nanomaterials is based on the lack of clear definitions. 'In food you have natural nanomaterials,' commented Dr Stamm. 'Homogenised milk has a nanostructure of 100nm sized droplets in it.'
The article concludes that ‘any definition would have to avoid confusion with natural nano-scaled materials,’ yet, the homogenisation of milk is an industrial process, deliberately applied, in order to create small droplet/particle sizes.
Follow this link in order to read the full article.