Search Results for: food

BY MONICA DOBIE
RESEARCHERS from Ghent University in Belgium have developed a non-antibiotic dietary supplement that protects farmed shrimp against bacterial infection – a finding that could help end antibiotic use in fish farming.

The study, published in the scientific journal Environmental Microbiolology said brine shrimp that were fed a compound called a polymer polyhydroxybutyrate – or PHB – were prevented from becoming infected with the bacteria vibrio campbellii an antibiotic-resistant pathogen that causes significant losses in the fish farming sector as an outbreak cannot be treated with antibiotics.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TO ease red tape costs, the European Commission has proposed exempting smaller food businesses from the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) element of regulation EC/852/2004 on foodstuff hygiene. Enterprises with less than 10 employees and annual turnovers below Euro 2 million would be exempted, including “bakeries, butchers, grocery shops, market stalls, restaurants, and bars”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that glucose syrups produced from barley is likely to be safe, with a low chance of allergic reactions “in the majority of cereal allergic individuals”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FURTHER tests are needed examining sheep developing ‘mad cow disease’ to provide data on how the disease can jump species, maybe even to humans, a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel has concluded. EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards has said “there is no intrinsic species barrier for sheep BSE transmission to humans”, however, because of lack of data, it “cannot quantify a species barrier effect”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AUSTRALIAN government has agreed to lighten health import controls on certain European Union (EU) food exports including those from pig and chicken meat, while speeding up import permit procedures for EU exported tomatoes and citrus fruit. The deal with the European Commission should end a World Trade Organisation dispute between the two countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is to spend Euro 3.7 million in EU money investigating processes that cause food to lose nutrition from the point it is harvested, through processing and transport to retail. The Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), in Dundee, will assess the variation in healthy compounds and nutrients within potatoes, wheat and tomatoes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FURTHER tests are needed examining sheep developing ‘mad cow disease’ to provide data on how the disease can jump species, maybe even to humans, a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel has concluded. EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards has said “there is no intrinsic species barrier for sheep BSE transmission to humans”, however, because of lack of data, it “cannot quantify a species barrier effect”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) residue limits limiting the contamination of foodstuffs by 144 pesticide substances are likely to be introduced, following the identification of potential consumer harm by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It has considered 236 chemicals in a European Commission-sponsored review and concluded that just 92 “were unlikely to present a risk.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE JOINT Research Centre (JRC) of the European Union (EU) has called for detailed tests into unexpected predictions thrown out by theoretical mathematical models on the health of seafood and fish stocks subjected to joint pollution by toxic contaminants and nutrients.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) researchers have teamed up with north American scientists to successfully develop commercially-viable treatments for pig wasting disease ‘postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome’ (PMWS), a major scourge of the pigmeat sector.

A new report on ongoing research, says PCVD is, “the most economically important pig disease to emerge in the last 10 years”, and “severely affects the livelihood of producers through EU member states and elsewhere.”…