Risk assessment of Belgian adults for furan contamination through the food chain

Abstract

Risk assessment is an interdisciplinary process used to quantify the risk linked to a hazard. In the present paper it is applied to quantify the risk linked to furan ingestion through the food chain for the Belgian adult population. Two approaches, deterministic and probabilistic, were carried out in parallel. The deterministic method relied on a case study, whereas the probabilistic approach involved statistical distributions of contamination and consumption data to calculate a statistical distribution of the daily intake. First, the deterministic method revealed a low estimated daily intake (EDI) for the average population (380 ng*(kg_bw*day)^–1) and a huge contribution of coffee consumption to the EDI (55%). Increasing or decreasing the daily coffee consumption by one cup can affect the EDI by about 22%. Afterwards, the probabilistic approach showed that the average population has a low EDI (494 ng*(kg_bw*day)⁻¹), and that high contamination levels were only registered in a small proportion of the population. Finally, a comparison of the RfD_{chronic oral} showed that less than 10% of the Belgian population had an EDI above the reference dose proposed by the USEPA; the majority of the population had an EDI 20% below the reference dose. The margin of exposure (MoE) approach indicated that the level of risk related to furan intake through ingestion is low, with a MoE > 10,000 for more than 10% of the population and no result < 100.

Keywords:

• animal products – meat
• bakery products
• canned foods
• cereals
• process contaminants
• risk assessment
• GC
• extraction
• exposure assessment

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment (contract RT 06/01 FURA). The authors wish to thank the Belgian Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP) for providing consumption data used in this study.