Natural Toxins in Plant Foods: Health Implications

Natural Toxins in Plant Foodstuffs

Since food plants are mixtures of large numbers of chemical compounds and since any substance is toxic in a high enough dose, it is not surprising that natural food plants are toxic under certain conditions. Toxicity from common natural foods has resulted from long-term consumption of a single food item or from short periods of consumption of foods containing unusually high levels of a toxic su...

Plant foods for human health: research challenges.

Plants provide the major part of human food intake. Whilst advances in agronomic characteristics (improved yield and better pest and disease resistance) continue to be a very high priority, there is increasing opportunity to enhance the nutritional value of plant based diets by improving the nutritional quality of staple foods. We now have proof of principle that genetic engineering can be used...

Contaminants and Toxins in Foods and Feeds

In the intensive livestock production systems, with decrease in grazing land and intensification of agriculture, the animal feeds are most likely to be contaminated with pesticides, dioxins, radionuclide, heavy metals, bacterial, fungal / mycotoxin contaminants etc., which may , market, it is the need of the hour to produce the livestock products free from contaminants. The feeds and fodders ar...

Thermally Processed Foods: Possible Health Implications

Australian aboriginal plant foods: a consideration of their nutritional composition and health implications.

For at least 40-50,000 years, plants played an important but supplementary role in the animal-dominated diet of Australian Aboriginal (AA) hunter-gatherers. New knowledge of the nutrient composition and the special physiological effects of their foods provides another perspective in the current debate on the composition of the 'prudent' diet and the diet on which humans evolved. In the present ...