Risk assessment of low-dose ethanol in food. (March 2023) - Reimann, Hauke
Abstract: A high variety of food contains low doses of ethanol which are sometimes difficult to identify by consumers (adults or children). However, even low doses of ethanol intake raises several toxicological concerns. In the present study, an enzymatic assay and an HS-GC/MS procedure were applied to determine the ethanol levels of 1260 samples from different food categories covering "nonalcoholic" beer, fruit juices/drinks, baked goods, bananas and baby foods. Based on these results, ethanol levels resulting from acute or chronic ethanol intake was calculated using consumption data from the EFSA Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database . Thus, health-based guidance values (HBGV) for ethanol intake were derived for acute or chronic exposure based on the available literature. For acute exposure, very few samples resulted in concerning ethanol uptake levels but following chronic exposure the here derived HBGV level was exceeded in several cases. This is mainly due to the following reasons: (1) certain amounts of ethanol are still tolerated in "nonalcoholic" beer and (2) presence of endogenous produced ethanol in bananas or baked goods via fermentation. Most analysed food samples, however, do not result in elevated ethanol doses linked with a potentially high risk following acute and chronic consumption by adults and children. Highlights: Low doses of ethanol can be found in a broad spectrum of food but only few risk assessments approaches exist. Here, 1260 food samples were analysed and resulting ethanol doses assessed via application of appropriate HBGVs. After acute consumption, very few samples resulted in exceedances of respective HBGVs. After chronic exposure, an increased number of samples resulted in exceedances of respective HBGVs. Most critical are high chronic ethanol intakes when no labelling of ethanol exist (e.g. in fermented food).