Food Additives Intake in Italy: An Application of Different Methodologies to Estimate the Intake of Sulphites With the Diet. Paolo Stacchini, Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Viale Regina Elena, 229 - 00161 - Roma, Italy, telephone 06 49902533, fax 0649387101; Catherine Leclercq, Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione - Roma, Italy; Massimo Baldini, Gianni Marsili, and Maria Grazia Molinaro, Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Viale Regina Elena,229 - 00161 - Roma, Italy; Angela Seeber and Maria Rita Sorbillo, Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione - Roma, Italy; and Massimo De Vincenzi, Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Viale Regina Elena, 229 - 00161 - Roma, Italy
The three recent commentary directives concerning food additives include the general obligation for the Member States to estimate periodically the food additives intakes to establish systems for monitoring the intake of food additives and evaluate the safety of their use.
In the EU Scientific Cooperation framework a specific task has been established to harmonize the methodologies of such monitoring. The task has recently produced a document where, among other things, the additives to monitor with priority have been identified.
Sulphites are permitted for use in a variety of foods, some of which largely used in Italy (wine) and for this reason it is necessary to assess the intake of this additive.
The existence of a theoretical risk of exceeding the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for sulphites has been evidence with techniques of worst-case analysis (Hallas Moller, 1995 - CODEX Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants,1997).
When theoretical intake estimates fail to rule out a risk of exceeding the ADI, then more refined intake estimates are necessary to check if a part of the population does actually exceed the ADI on a regular basis.
In the present study, we tried to model realistic meals and diets (for both adults and children) high in sulphites. Standard portion sizes and standard recipes were used : The exercise was perform 1)with MPL (Maximum Permitted Level) in order to check for the intrinsic safety of the legislation and 2) with residue levels (determined analytically) in order to assess the present risk for the Italian population .
Results show that in the adult population the risk of exceeding the ADI is mainly related to the intake of wine. However, if sulphites were present at MPL in all the foods in they are permitted, children consuming regularly soft drinks, processed fruit and potatoes would also exceed the ADI .
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