Spring 2019

Food Safety

In this issue of Trends, we discuss food safety.

The first article is about lead in food, discussing various sources of lead in food and explaining how scientists model lead levels in human blood to characterize exposure when investigating health risks associated with ingesting lead in food products. The second article discusses how growing cannabis and the processing required for its infusion into edibles make these consumer products susceptible to contamination. Nutritional epidemiology is the topic of the third article. It describes how observational epidemiological studies can provide valuable insights on the diet-disease relationship, and highlights the need for careful interpretation of study findings due to possible methodological limitations and biases.

Gradient contributors to this issue include Rosemary Mattuck, M.S., Drs. Joel Cohen, DABT, James Rice, Tom Lewandowski, DABT, ERT, ATS, A. Dallas Wait, and Kirsten (Ke) Zu, M.P.H. Joining us with a guest editorial is Dr. Philip Demokritou of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, writing about how applications of nanoscale materials can help improve food quality and safety.

We hope that this issue of Trends informs you of some hot topics related to food safety.

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  • IntroLetter from the Editors