The European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) has responded to criticism over its ruling that bottled water manufacturers are banned from claiming that water can prevent dehydration. The EFSA is responsible for scientific assessment of food and composition and food marketing claims in Europe. On 16 November 2011 the European Commission published a list of health claims made on foods that refer to the reduction of disease risk (EU No 1170/​2011) that had been rejected in previous months by the... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority has criticised a request by the European Commission for a re-evaluation of the safety of the sweetener aspartame.The Commission’s request comes despite the fact that EFSA reviewed the latest studies on aspartame last month and scheduling a full evaluation in 2020. “When we evaluated scientific studies on aspartame recently, we didn’t see anything glaring that would lead us to believe people should change their daily intake,” said an EFSA... ...Read more »

Current high levels of consumer confidence in Europe’s food industry could be damaged if the use of nanotechnology is not properly regulated or managed, the CIAA Congress in Brussels was told on Friday. In its final conference session, delegates debated the question of trust between food manufacturers and the public. Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, executive director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) stressed a recent report by the EU’s Eurobarometer survey that had shown European... ...Read more »

Japanese dairy firm Yakult has said it will continue to conduct human studies to back-up the health benefits of its probiotic products, after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) cast doubt on health claims for probiotics. In a series of opinions published on Tuesday, EFSA assessed more than 800 health claims from food companies. The claims included assertions that probiotic bacteria strains boost the immune system and reduce gut problems. However, EFSA’s independent panel of scientists... ...Read more »

As part of its on-going consultation with stakeholders, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) today announced its intention to call a meeting in September 2010 with environmental NGOs on its guidelines for the Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).The revised draft ERA guidelines are the result of two years’ work by scientists from all over Europe and demonstrate EFSA’s commitment to staying at the forefront of recent developments in the field... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) scientific Panel on additives, the ANS Panel, has assessed the safety of steviol glycosides, sweeteners extracted from plant leaves, and established an Acceptable Daily Intake for their safe use. The assessment was conducted after European Stevia Association (Eustas), Cargill and Japanese firm Morita, all filed petitions seeking regulatory approval. Steviol glycosides are intense sweeteners extracted from the leaves of the stevia plant (Stevia rebaudiana... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority’s scientific panel on additives, the ANS Panel, has lowered the Acceptable Daily Intakes for the artificial food colours Quinoline Yellow (E104), Sunset Yellow FCF (E110) and Ponceau 4R (E124) – three of the food colours linked to hyperactivity in the ‘Southampton study‘. As a result, the Panel concluded that exposure to these colours could exceed the new ADIs (acceptable daily intakes) for both adults and children. The Panel found that the... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority has published its first series of opinions on the list of ‘general function’ health claims compiled by Member States and the European Commission, finding that two-thirds were currently unsubstantiated. Experts on EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) evaluated the scientific evidence for more than 500 claims, with the opinions to help inform future decisions of the European Commission and Member States concerning the... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority expert Panel on food contact materials sees no health risks from the short-term consumption of breakfast cereals contaminated with 4-methylbenzophenone at levels reported earlier this year. The Panel reached its conclusions after re-assessing the toxicological data on the similar substance, benzophenone. However, the Panel confirmed that should the use of 4-methylbenzophenone continue, more data would be needed for a full risk assessment.Benzophenone and 4-methylbenzophenone... ...Read more »

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published the first in a series of opinions on flavouring products which are added to foods to give a “smoked” flavour. EFSA’s CEF Panel concluded that the use of the flavouring product Smoke Concentrate 809045 was not of safety concern, however, it expressed safety fears over the use of two other flavouring products – Unismoke and Zesti Smoke Code 10. These findings were based on exposure estimates for all of the smoke flavourings... ...Read more »