Harmful Toxins and Chemicals in Processed Foods and Related Products: Occurrence, Formation, Detection, Assessment, Prevention and Control Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid development of the global food industry and the growing reliance of consumers on processed foods, the potential risks posed by chemical contaminants within the food supply chain have become a critical concern in the fields of public health and food safety. The proportion of the global disease burden attributable to food contamination has been steadily increasing, with harmful toxins and chemicals in processed foods serving as significant contributing factors. These contaminants may originate from various sources, including raw material contamination, byproducts of processing, improper storage conditions, migration from packaging materials, or the addition of unauthorized substances. As a result, consumers may face various acute or chronic health risks such as carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, immunosuppression, etc. Furthermore, the occurrence of emerging contaminants, along with the complex toxic effects of both traditional and/or emerging contaminants under real-world exposure scenarios, not only presents new challenges for food safety management but also demands enhanced research into the mechanisms of contaminant formation, the development of advanced detection techniques, comprehensive risk assessment frameworks, and the development of “green” prevention and control strategies. Therefore, it is imperative to integrate multidisciplinary cutting-edge technologies to effectively cope with evolving food safety risks in processed foods and facilitate the transition from "reactive detection" to "proactive prevention and control".

High-quality original research articles, reviews, short communications, and methodologies focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics are welcome to be submitted to this Special Issue:

Formation mechanisms of chemical contaminants in both traditional and novel food processes;

Developing innovative highly specific sensing technologies or point-of-care detection methods for complex food matrices;

Toxicological evaluation and risk assessment based on in vivo and in vitro experimental models, computational simulations, network pharmacology, and/or epidemiological data;

Novel approaches for the detoxification, degradation, and control of harmful toxins and chemicals in food;

The inhibitive capacity of natural products for the generation of harmful substances during food processing and their potential antagonistic effects on toxicities.

This Special Issue excludes papers focused on biological contaminants, such as pathogenic microorganisms, physical contaminants, and research related to clinical nutritional toxicology.

Dr. Hongyuan Zhou
Dr. You Zhou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• foodborne contamination
• harmful toxins and chemicals
• emerging risk factors
• pollution levels and formation mechanisms
• toxic effects and risk assessments
• biosensors
• detection methods
• detoxification strategies
• contamination control