Risk-Benefit Assessment of Cereal-Based Foods Consumed by Portuguese Children Aged 6 to 36 Months—A Case Study under the RiskBenefit4EU Project

Abstract

Cereal-based foods, including breakfast (BC) and infant cereals (IC), are among the first solid foods introduced to infants. BC and IC are sources of macro and micronutrients that have beneficial effects on health, but can also be sources of harmful chemical and microbiological contaminants and nutrients that may lead to adverse health effects at high consumption levels. This study was performed under the RiskBenefit4EU project with the aim of assessing the health impact associated with consumption of BC and IC by Portuguese children under 35 months. Adverse effects associated with the presence of aflatoxins, Bacillus cereus, sodium and free sugars were assessed against the benefits of fiber intake. We applied a risk–benefit assessment approach, and quantified the health impact of changes in consumption of BC and IC from current to various alternative consumption scenarios. Health impact was assessed in terms of disability-adjusted life years. Results showed that moving from the current consumption scenario to considered alternative scenarios results in a gain of healthy life years. Portuguese children can benefit from exchanging intake of IC to BC, if the BC consumed has an adequate nutritional profile in terms of fiber, sodium and free sugars, with levels of aflatoxins reduced as much as possible.

Microbiological and mycotoxicological analyses of processed cereal‐based complementary foods for infants and young children from the German market

“…This is the first analysis of the PCFs from the German market, and the second one worldwide (Assunção et al, 2021), in which two major food safety categories have been studied, namely microbiological quality and contami-nation with mycotoxins. Of course pathogenic, opportunistic, or spoilage bacteria have no direct relationship with fungal toxins.…”

“…Surveys on PCF studying microbiological criteria with a broader scope are rare (Kim et al., 2011), but Cronobacter spp. (Kim et al., 2011; Ziver et al., 2020) and B. cereus (Assunção et al., 2021) have been detected with some frequency. The number of published mycotoxin surveys in PCF is also limited, and even fewer recent data are available (Mallmann et al., 2020).…”

“…Although the importance of commercial PCF for infant nutrition certainly is high in industrialized countries, the number of published studies dealing with the microbiological and mycotoxicological quality of such products is surprisingly small, and just one study dealt with both (Assunção et al., 2021).…”

Health Risk-Benefit Assessment of the Commercial Red Mangrove Crab: Implications for a Cultural Delicacy

“…The highest detected concentration (Crisk) and the average of the IR distribution were used to calculate the exposure. Concentrations below the LOD or LOQ were assigned the LOD and LOQ value, respectively, leading to an upper-bound scenario (worst case) (Joint FAO & WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, 2011; Assunção et al, 2021).…”

Risk–benefit assessment of shifting from traditional meat‐based diets to alternative dietary patterns

“…When the RBA question is related to a food product, the possible adverse and positive health effects are associated with different food compounds or contaminants (Nauta et al., 2018 ). RBA is an emerging multidisciplinary tool and until now has been used either for fish (Hoekstra et al., 2012 ; Cardoso et al., 2018 ), meat (Mota et al., 2021 ), cereal‐based food (Assunção et al., 2021 ) or rice consumption (Fang et al., 2021 ), the substitution of red and processed meat with fish (Thomsen et al., 2018 ), and the substitution of unprocessed red meat with pulses (Fabricius et al., 2021 ).…”