What is unsafe food? Change of perspective

Abstract

BackgroundWhat is unsafe food? Because absolute safety does not exit, to deliver a relevant answer lasting over time, the robustness and reliability of safety assessment approaches should be continuously checked against scientific and cultural development. This is not possible. However, it is a societal right to expect that food safety decisions match the state of scientific knowledge at any given time. Scope and approachThis work provides insights into current unresolved challenges in the field of food safety forced by the continuous emergence of novel food products, which challenges the current safety assessment system anchored to approaches and principles developed few decades ago, and imposes new ways of thinking. Key findings and conclusionsWe propose a logic framework to explicitly recognize time as the factor that 1) is shaping the interaction between scientific evidence and risk perception, and 2) ensures synchronicity between food safety standards development and the speed of innovation. The ethical responsibility of the food safety community towards society is to do the absolute possible best, carefully declare the associated limits and constantly verify the assumptions involved. This is the only path to correctly answer the question today, and hereafter.