Almost every week, the press wakes up with a new food warning. This time it happened a can of tuna in sunflower oil Histamines (a product of the breakdown of histidine) have been found in them and can cause vomiting, headaches, diarrhea and hives in what we call ‘toxic histaminosis’.

It’s nothing exceptional or particularly striking: it’s actually a sign that (unlike countries like the US) the traceability system is working relatively well. However, it is surprising that in 2022 we not only have a steady stream of these cases, but it is also very difficult to withdraw these products while they are in consumers’ homes.

In search of zero risk. In recent years, the food industries have really developed remarkably. A few years ago, Moya and Ferrer (from the toxicology field of the University of Valencia) decided to put numbers in this major and conducted a study on the evolution of food stimuli from the Coordinated System for Rapid Information Exchange. His data has us optimistic: warnings have decreased by around 5% per year, despite the rise in risks from the free movement of products across the European Union.

Zero risk that does not exist. However, as we’ve seen in recent years, the risk is still there. Cases of poor handling practices (lack of hygiene, training issues, etc.), limitations in control systems (poor assessment of the risks and hazards of industrial processes), contamination (due to lack of ‘food defence’) and fraud continue. creates many food problems.

How will we learn? Because that’s the real problem. While reports of recalls are common, it is very difficult to know whether a can of tuna in our pantry has been withdrawn from the market today. Withdrawal systems run like clockwork to the supermarket: Beyond that, they lack mechanisms that make it easier for consumers to access information.

In fact, the US FDA has acknowledged that this is one of the big issues pending in 2019. And in the United States, approximately 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick from preventable food poisoning each year. 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. Comparatively, the situation in Europe is significantly better, but on the continent more than 500 people die from preventable poisonings.

Technology against health alarms. In recent years, health alerts have become easier to access as the internet makes it easier for authorities to create public databases. However, it is not common practice in Spanish cuisines to refer to these databases for cans of tuna in the pantry.

Therefore, although there is no shortage of initiatives such as the inclusion of QR codes on packaging, which allows the status of each product to be easily checked at any time with a mobile phone, the reality is that this is the effort made by the authorities. reducing the risks on this side is not as effective as we would like it to be.

a pending task. There is still much to be done, and it is reasonable for us, as an agro-food power (i.e., the industrial giant of the products that produce the most food stimulus), to expect Spanish leadership in this area. We’ll see if we can handle that.

Image | clear food facts