The 24th ATDS involved the analysis of Australian foods and beverages for concentrations of three food chemicals and 30 food packaging chemicals and printing inks. A total of 94 foods and beverages were sampled over two sampling periods. Due to the broad scope of the survey, the report is being released in two phases. This report focuses on acrylamide, aluminium and perchlorates. The phase 2 report will focus on food packaging chemicals including bisphenol A (BPA), epoxidised soy bean oil (ESBO), phthalates, printing inks and perfluorinated compounds.
Results
Acrylamide
- The levels of acrylamide found in the 24th ATDS were generally lower than, or comparable to, those reported in Australian and international studies.
- Estimated dietary exposures were used to calculate Margin of Exposures using carcinogenic and neurotoxic endpoints. These indicate that the acrylamide exposure of Australian consumers is consistent with those considered to be of possible concern to human health by the 72nd meeting of the Joint Food and Agriculture Organisation/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA, 2011).
- It is important to maintain industry and consumer education measures to ensure acrylamide levels in Australian foods remain as low as reasonably achievable.
Aluminium
- Aluminium was included in the 24th ATDS to supplement data collected during the 23rd ATDS and to provide an updated dietary exposure estimate.
- Estimated dietary exposures were under the Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake (PTWI) for all population groups assessed except for 2–5 year old 90th percentile consumers who had an estimated exposure of 110% of the PTWI. This small exceedance is unlikely to represent a major public health and safety issue.
- Dietary exposure estimates were higher than those reported in the 23rd ATDS because more processed foods were included. The 24th ATDS included foods likely to have additives containing aluminium, with relatively high levels of aluminium being found in some foods such as cakes, compared to other foods surveyed.
Perchlorate
- Perchlorate levels were screened in eight tap water samples from across Australia and all results were below the limit of reporting. For this reason, no risk assessment for perchlorates was conducted.
Conclusion
FSANZ has identified a number of areas for further work or development of risk management options to ensure that the Australian food supply remains safe. FSANZ will continue to monitor both domestic and international developments related to chemicals in food and use this to prioritise future survey work in the form of a nationally coordinated ATDS or smaller scale target surveys as required.
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Full report [ word 2570 kb | pdf 1945 kb ]
