Monitoring of food toxins and contaminants is a challenging area in the field of food safety. Every year almost 40 percent of the world wide crop lost occurs due to mycotoxin, a natural food contamination. In a survey by GAFFI (Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections), every year over 1.66 million people die due to fungal infection, higher in comparison to deaths from malaria and tuberculosis are 0.6 and 1.54 million respectively. Moreover, occurrence of mycotoxins has been identified in almost of all kinds of commonly consumed food-stuffs including marketed crops, vegetables, dietary products or processed food-items etc. Thus along with the huge economical loss, these mycotoxins also pose serious threats to mankind and their prompt detection is important. Presently, detection of food contaminants/mycotoxins are majorly carried out by classical analytical tools that are time consuming and cost intensive. Also, due to the requirement of preparing the samples before analysis and requirement for trained personnel for analysis, classical analytical techniques pose a major problem. Till date, there are no 'on- site' platforms for food safety monitoring using biological molecules as receptors, although several research articles have been published on the same.
Bisphenol A (BPA) and its substitutes are known to cause several diseases related to reproduction, development, brain function and cardiovascular health. In India, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder prevalence rate is 5 to 12% which has shown association with the bisphenols intake. Despite of strict regulations in several countries, bisphenols have been detected in several personal care and food products. In India, there is no strict policy regarding the use of bisphenols and hence likelihood of prevalence in water and food products is high which could put Indian population on high risk. It is important to understand the prevalence of bisphenols in water & Indian food products and the exposure risk in Indian populations so that regulatory guidelines can be formulated. Therefore, it is necessary to have sensitive, easy to use and cost effective detection methods for detecting contaminants such as BPA and its derivatives in water and food products including beverages.
With the growing global food consumption accompanied by increasing cost of food products, the farmers and food growers are emotionally and economically pressurized to grow more crops with high profitability. As a result, use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides has increased tremendously. World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified pesticides according to their health hazards and have banned many pesticides. But still, in many developing countries, the banned pesticides are widely used. Apart from that as much as 30 % of the pesticides do not meet internationally recognized safety standards. In almost all parts of the world, low-level poisoning of human beings due to pesticide contamination of food poses a risk of chronic illness and adverse health effects. Nowadays with the increasing number of health conscious consumers and government regulations on food safety, pesticide detection has become need of the hour. Monitoring of pesticides in fruit and vegetable samples has increased and most countries have established maximum residue level (MRL) for pesticides in food products. With the advance urbanization, the procurements of vegetables and fruits are mostly from markets and supermarkets. However, these procurement locations don’t have pesticide residues detection devices. Biosensors account for an easy method to determine pesticides in environmental and food matrices. The use of biosensors as screening devices is cost effective and decreases the number of samples to be analysed as compared to traditional analytical techniques.
During spoilage, microbial metabolism leads to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) production, detection of which is a well-established method for food quality monitoring. Present analytical tools for VOCs detection are expensive, time consuming, labour intensive and laboratory based. So far, only a single electronic portable device (FOOD sniffer) is available internationally to detect spoilage. However, it suffers from issues related to its detection limit, reliability and environmental interference. A rapid, accurate low cost and easy-to-use VOC detection system can have application in food industry other than spoilage detection. Artificial ripening of fruits has emerged as standard method across the globe to meet the high demand of growing population. VOCs such as ethylene gas mimics the natural ripening agent and has been approved by various regulatory bodies (e.g. FDA, FSSAI etc.) with an upper limit of 100 ppm. Therefore, a proper monitoring system is required for preventing over-ripening and thus wastage of fruits. The proposal focuses on developing, low cost, optical VOC detection technique which could be implemented in an easy-to-use hand- held device for monitoring food spoilage and fruit ripening.
Acrylamide, a genotoxicant, was detected in variety of common foods processed at high temperature (frying, baking etc) such as chips (French fries), potato crisps, breakfast cereals, breads and cookies. Acrylamide found in thermal-treated foods has led to an intensive and persistent research effort, since it is a neurotoxic, genotoxic and probable carcinogenic compound to humans. Acrylamide is a byproduct of the Maillard reaction and can be generated from food components, during heat treatment, as a result of the reaction between the reactive carbonyl group on the sugar and amino group of the amino acid. Acrylamide in food is a concern because it can cause cancer in laboratory animals at high doses, and is reasonably accepted to be a human carcinogen (NTP, 2011). Extensive studies on acrylamide content in western diets has been reported. In 2013, the FDA called attention to acrylamide in foods by publishing a draft guidance for industry, providing information to help growers, manufacturers, and food service operators on how to reduce the concentration of acrylamide in certain foods (FDA, 2013). Similar kind of work has been initiated in some of the Asian countries also in order to find out the levels of acrylamide in their local diets and to regulate their formation by controlling various processing parameters and to establish a relation between the acrylamide content and cancer. However, no such initiatives have been happened in India.
