Enzymes may constitute a safety hazard 5:
Generally, the consumer will not experience enzymes in a concentrated form and this reduces the risk but does not eliminate it;
The body's defences are designed to cope with a wide range of enzyme activities present in natural food and there is no evidence that enzymes added to food are an exception;
Enzymes from plant and animal sources that are usually consumed by man do not require toxological testing as those of microbial origin. Bacterial and fungal toxins are recognized as extrimely toxic to humans and may also be carcinogenic. Because of this toxin problem of microbial origin, minimum testing requirements and guidelines for good manufacturing practices have been defined to avoid contamination of.
Each country has defined their own regulations with respect to permission of food additives. Furthermore, the lists of national requirements tend to change quickly. For the export and import of foods between countries and for adequate manufacturing the industries must rely on experts in trade associations or associations of researchers for the latest informations.
A few enzymes have been approved in the United States of North America by the "U.S. Food and Drug Administration" and can be legally used in food processing (Y.H. Hui, 1992 6)
.The approval requisites always include the following rules:
The microbial strain is nonpathogenic and nontoxic (for man or other animals).
The enzyme is produced in a process that completely removes the microorganism from the enzyme product.
The amount of enzyme to be used in the enzymatic reaction does not exceed the minimum required to produce its intended technical effect.
The enzyme product is maintained under refrigeration from production to use and is labelled to inform of the need of this storage condition.
The enzyme production conditions must garantee that the enzyme extract is free from certain toxins characteristic of erroneous growth procedures of the enzyme producing strain.