UK researchers to unveil acrylamide findings
potential carcinogen identified in crisps and French fries two
years ago, will be revealed at a meeting next week under the
auspices of the UK food agency.
Based on a shopping basket definition from the UK food and farm ministry DEFRA, the York-based Central Science Laboratory(CSL) will release the results of its survey of acrylamide in the UK diet.
In April 2002, this potentially harmful chemical came to the attention of the food industry when scientists at the Swedish Food Administration first reported unexpectedly high levels of acrylamide in carbohydrate-rich foods, including crisps, chips and some breads.
And later in 2002, breakthrough research led by Professor Don Mottram at the University of Reading looked at how the chemical could be formed.
Mottram's team suspected it could be created by a reaction between an amino acid called asparagine, which occurs naturally in relatively high levels in potatoes and other cereals, and sugar.
Tests confirmed that when the amino acid is heated, it does react with sugar to create acrylamide, a process called the Maillard reaction. This occurs at temperatures above 100°C (212°F). Their findings were published in Nature 419, 448-449 (2002).
Speaking recently to FoodNavigator.com Professor Mottram said that the industry was still working to monitor the presence of acrylamide in foods and trying to look at empirical ways to gauge the problem.
In particular, the food companies are looking at ways to reduce acrylamide levels by moderating the processing conditions - investigating, for example, certain potato varieties and the impact they can have on the chemical's formation.
The food industry will be keen to learn the findings of the nationwide CSL study, to be presented by the UK Food Standards Agency on 30 November, that could shed further light on the presence of acrylamide in the daily diet and the level of consumer uptake.
The meeting is ahead of a European Commission meeting in 2005 on the risk management of acrylamide, itself set up as a run-up to the Joint FAO/WHO Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) meeting in Rome from 9 - 17 February 2005 that will gather world scientists together to discuss this potential contaminant.
At the end of last year EU funding bought a major cash boost to European research on the subject. Led by the research team at Stockholm university that first discovered acylamide in food, and headed up by food chemist Kerstin Skog, the project will group together 23 collaborative partners, including the department of food engineering at Lund university and the National Food Administration in Sweden as well as research bodies dotted all over Europe. The EU committed €4.2 million over three years to research, with project partners agreeing to match this sum.
