Food Toxicity and Safety

This book comprises 15 chapters contributed by scientists and experts from countries including Australia, India, Peru, USA, UK, and Zimbabwe and is divided into four sections. Section I of the book deals with the challenges in food safety such as chemical contaminants, nanoparticles used in agriculture in form of fertilizers and pesticides, microplastics, organic pollutants like perfluoro-octane sulphonate and consist of six chapters. Section II is dedicated to heavy metal contamination in food such as high cadmium exposure and associated health risks and contains four chapters. Section III includes four chapters that highlight arsenic contamination in the food and food chain system—a serious threat to food security and human health. To summarize and provide a way forward, a chapter has been included in Section IV. The book is an informative source of reference to the researchers and scientists working in the area of food science and technology, food regulators, policymakers, producers, healthcare providers, educators, consumers, and other stakeholders.

Dr. Debapriya Mondal is an Environmental Epidemiologist with more than fifteen years of experience working in the area of environmental determinants of human health. With an environmental public health background, her areas of expertise encompass global health, epidemiology, toxicology, global health risk assessment, and risk perceptions. Dr. Mondal completed her Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in 2010 on ‘Arsenic Health Risk Assessment in Bengal Delta’, and developed a conceptual framework for “Global Health Risk Assessment and Management” for combined exposure routes in a population living with exposure to a Class I human carcinogen. She has successfully drawn on work from different fields of environmental sciences, with particular interest in the effects of arsenic contamination on human health, biomarkers of arsenic exposure, and identification of molecular and physiological mechanisms of arsenic toxicity.
 
Dr. Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman is an Associate Professor in the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, the University of Newcastle (UoN), Callaghan, Australia and is an internationally recognized expert in the field of arsenic research. His research activity is focused on metals/metalloids and how they affect the environment globally and pose significant risk to humans. His research interests cover a broad range of topics including chemistry, toxicity, bioavailability and human health effects of arsenic, metals/metalloids speciation using hyphenated techniques, lowering arsenic and cadmium from rice to enhance food security and agronomic bio-fortification of zinc and selenium in food crops to minimize micronutrient deficiencies. In addition, he has been working on various remediation technologies of removing contaminants from water and soil using novel and biocompatible materials such as modified clay composites, activated carbon, and modified biochar materials.