Risk assessment and management of chemicals present in the human environment are crucially important to prevent potential human health crises. The chemicals in question are generally classified into several categories (such as food additives, pesticide residues, pollutants, pharmaceuticals and industrial products) and are assessed and managed according to pertinent laws and other international and domestic rulings. In most cases, guidelines are established to ensure that processes of risk assessment and management are appropriate. The present issue of the journal features expert contributions covering the processes of risk assessment and management to avoid adverse health impacts of the various categories of chemicals encountered in the human environment.

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In the Food Sanitation Act in Japan, food additives are defined as substances used in or on a foodstuff during the process of manufacturing, or materials for the purpose of processing or preserving food, that are applied by various methods including blending. Although most of the substances that have been employed for this purpose since ancient ages are of natural origin, several cases of poisoning have been experienced.
Historically, there were several turning points in the regulation of food additives in Japan. As one of the biggest changes, applications for all new substances, irregardless of whether they are natural products, became mandatory in 1995. Data for kinetics, toxicity tests and epidemiological evidence of human are required in each application. In 2003, to deal with the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) problem, the Food Safety Commission was organized under the Cabinet Office as the center for risk assessment organization, independent of risk management organizations including the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Japan depends on imported food for about 60 % of the total calorie consumption. Systems and regulations concerning food safety, including those for food additives, are not necessarily the same for all countries, and therefore harmonization and establishment of international standards for such substances are required.

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The world population is now 7.2 billion and is still growing rapidly, with expectation that it will reach more than 9 billion by 2050. To support this huge population, food production must be stepped up and pesticides will presumably have an important role in increasing yields of agricultural products. In fact, their application has been shown to improve crop yields and thus the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, thereby contributing to the support of human and animal lives. However, pesticides have the potential to exhibit adverse effects on human and/or environmental health, although these will generally depend on dose levels. Therefore, the governments in many countries have instituted regulatory controls over pesticide use to minimize exposure of the general population to residues in foodstuffs. Regulatory agencies such as the US EPA, Japanese MAFF and OECD have established Test Guidelines for conducting various safety studies on toxicology, residues, and environmental dynamics of pesticides for human and environmental risk assessment before their registration. Current safety testing of pesticides includes a wide variety of toxicology studies in animals, metabolism studies in animals and plants, and residue analyses in crops and soil. All resultant data are submitted to the regulatory agencies and subjected to appropriate risk assessment and risk management. In Japan, such risk assessment is currently conducted by the Food Safety Commission while risk management is performed by the relevant regulatory agency in compliance with the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act, Food Sanitation Act, Food Safety Basic Act, Basic Environment Act, and Chemical Substance Control Act.

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The foods have essentially been screened during human history and basically chosen and rooted in culture. Clearly, most are not harmful to health. However, in everyday life, food poisoning does occur due to eating and drinking materials containing pollutants, like poisonous metals, for example. The toxic effects are dependent on the dose and quantity of exposure the biological half-life in each organ is important. Metal toxicity may be reduced by proteins with protective roles like metallothionein having a thiol group for example. In this report we describe the toxicity, risk assessment and risk management of poisonous metals in foodstuffs, with a particular focus on mercury and arsenic.
Methylmercury may be found in seafood. However, we must consider nutritional merit and balance benefit and risk by avoiding eating fish with high methylmercury concentrations.
Well water may also be a source of pollutants particularly in developing countries. Arsenic compounds are of particular importance in this regard and there is abundant epidemiological evidence of association with cancer development. In addition, experimental studies have indicated that dimethylarsinic acid which is major metabolite of arsenic in mammal is carcinogenic for the rat urinary bladder, and dimethylmonothioarsinic acid is one of its active metabolites. It is therefore essential that examination of drinking water be routinely enforced with development of clarification technology to ensure removal of trace amounts.
The risk management of the poisonous metal exposure is very important for Japanese who may be exposed to mercury and arsenic in marine products. For future comprehensive safety and risk management of foodstuffs, vigilance and accumulation of further data are required.

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Pharmaceuticals contain many excipients other than the active ingredient. Considering the weight ratio of excipients and active ingredient, excipients can determine the safety of pharmaceuticals . Pharmaceutical excipients are generally required to be inactive and non-toxic as defined in the general rules for preparations of The Japanese Pharmacopoeia Sixteenth Edition as follows: “Pharmaceutical excipients are substances other than active substances contained in preparations, and they are used to increase the utility of the active substance(s) and preparation, to make formulation process easier, to keep the product quality, to improve the usability, and so forth. Suitable excipients may be added for these purposes. The excipients to be used, however, must be pharmacologically inactive and harmless in the administered amount and must not interfere with the therapeutic efficacy of the preparations.” Recently, the use of functional excipients as carriers in drug delivery systems (DDS) is increasing. Functional excipients are characteristically active and do have some effects on the human body. Also, conventional pharmaceutical excipients may cause toxic reactions resulting from the user's health condition, overdose or poor quality etc. Considering these situations, sufficient safety information for excipients should be collected and appropriate risk assessment / management should be done. Pharmaceutical excipients are reviewed for approval by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency. Because of the nature of pharmaceutical excipients, approval review for excipient is flexible and on a case-by-case basis. A need for pharmaceutical excipient guidelines in Japan has been recognized. On development of guidelines, FDA / EU guidelines may be used as a reference.

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With the “World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)” held in Johannesburg in 2002 as a turning point, today's chemicals management is based on agreement aiming that by 2020 chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse effects on human health and the environment, taking into consideration precautionary principles using risk assessment and management methods based on transparent science. A “Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM)” has therefore been developed resulting in a clear paradigm shift from hazard-based management focusing only on conventional chemical substance-specific hazards to a risk-based management grounded on comprehensive scientific methods. In line with these trends and moves, both government and private sectors are developing various measures, while the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and the Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) are conducting various activities to resolve the challenging issues encountered. The ICCA has pledged practice of a “Responsible Care (RC) Global Charter” and a “Global Product Strategy (GPS)” to achieve the 2020 goal in 2006. In addition, the JCIA has commenced the “Japan Initiative of Product Stewardship (JIPS)” as a voluntary effort for chemicals management and issued risk assessment guidances to promote this approach. The present article first outlines risk management of chemicals and then introduces the risk assessment method using the ECETOC TRA tool for voluntary activity of the chemical industry (GPS/JIPS).

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The glass transition property of carbohydrate materials and its practical significance for the quality control of food are reviewed. Carbohydrate materials exist, at least partially, in an amorphous state and thus a glass transition occurs during dehydration/rehydration and/or freeze/thaw processing. Since rheological properties are changed drastically by the glass transition, it is of practical importance to understand the glass transition temperature (T_g) and freeze-concentrated glass transition temperature (T_g'). The T_g of carbohydrate materials increases with an increase in the molecular weight depending on the types of monomer and chemical bond, and decreases with increase in the moisture content. Semi-crystalline carbohydrate polymers have slightly higher T_g than amorphous carbohydrate polymers. Effect of molecular weight on the T_g' is a roughly similar trend to the T_g. It is well known that a cookie is a typical carbohydrate enriched glassy food. The T_g of a cookie decreases with an increase in water content. In addition sugar composition plays an important role in the T_g of cookie products; the T_g of a cookie increases sensitively with an increase in the T_g of sugar composition used. This suggests that physical properties of a cookie is governed by the amorphous sugar matrix, and that the texture and storage stability of a cookie can be designed by the T_g based on the sugar composition.

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While the human life span is rapidly increasing, many older adults are at risk for developing malnutrition, the lack of adequate nutrition to maintain health. Malnutrition is associated with a decline in functional status, impaired muscle function, loss of muscle mass, decreased immune function, reduced cognitive function, higher hospitalization rate and so on. Therefore it is important for older adults to intake a nutrient-dense diet, especially high-protein foods such as meat, milk, egg or fish containing all the essential amino acids. Intake of probiotics containing useful live microorganisms such as lactic acid bacteria (LBA) is also beneficial, especially to aging adults who often suffer from suppressed immune systems due to the effects of aging and increased antibiotic use.
While numerous LAB are used in the manufacture of various fermented dairy products, the application of LAB in meat products is rare, except for dry-fermented sausages. Therefore we developed a dry-fermented meat product, fermented pork jerky, using the mixed cultures of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (Lb. bulgaricus) and Streptococcus thermophilus (Stc. thermophilus) which are often used in the manufacture of yogurt. For the LAB culture, 10 % whey containing 0.5 % yeast extract and 0.5 % glucose was more suitable for the manufacture of the jerky than 10 % skim milk and 10 % whey. The pork jerky is processed using LAB fermentation for 6 h at 43 ℃ , followed by seasoning and then drying at 20 ℃ . The fermentation of pork with the LAB had the ability to prevent growth of undesirable bacteria such as coliform microbes in the non-heated meat products; especially, fermentation at the optimum temperature of the LAB. Two types of fermented pork jerky made from thinly sliced whole muscles and minced muscles were developed; they had pH of 4.47±0.09 and 4.73±0.04, and aw at 0.700±0.033 and 0.766±0.044, respectively. The viable cells of LAB with counts at 10⁷ cfu/g, survived in the both jerky. Appearance, flavor, and texture of the jerky were acceptable using sensory evaluation. Fermented pork jerky processed using LAB cultures had a tender texture compared to common commercial jerky, possibly due to hydrolysis of myofibrillar proteins during fermentation. We examined the effects of Lb. bulgaricus and Stc. thermophilus starter cultures on the proteolytic processes occurring in fermented pork. Significant hydrolysis was observed in myofibrillar proteins from the fermented pork with LAB cultures and the incubated pork with glucono-delta-lactone (GDL), in contrast to the control sample incubated without LAB or GDL. Although the specific proteolytic activities of each strain towards myofibrils were unclear, their hydrolysis of myosin B was clearly demonstrated. We concluded that myofibrillar protein hydrolysis occurring during the fermentation of pork is due to the combined action of meat endogenous proteases and proteases from Lb. bulgaricus and Stc. thermophilus. The developed products demonstrate that the fermented pork jerky may provide a technology to produce a novel probiotic dry meat product.

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Water, maintaining its liquid state under pressurized conditions, is called subcritical or compressed hot water. Subcritical water shows some characteristic properties, such as high ion products and low dielectric constant. There are many studies on the extraction of valuable compounds from wastes in food processing. In addition, subcritical water can catalyze many reactions, such as hydrolysis, isomerization, and decomposition, by utilizing the high ion products. Polysaccharides from biomass are hydrolyzed into oligo-and monosaccharides by subcritical water treatment, and oligosaccharides are further hydrolyzed into monosaccharides. During the treatment, isomerization and decomposition of saccharides also occur in parallel with the hydrolysis. Glucose and mannose can isomerize into fructose in subcritical water. However, the yield of fructose was low because of the low stability of fructose and side reactions which form erythrose, 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, and some organic acids. The reaction kinetics of these reactions has been analyzed. Subcritical aqueous ethanol also efficiently catalyzes the isomerization of glucose and mannose into fructose with higher selectivity of fructose than subcritical water. Increasing ethanol content in subcritical aqueous ethanol promoted the isomerization rather than decomposition. This procedure would also be applicable for the production of rare sugars.

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The IUCN listed Apostichopus japonicus (Japanese Spiky Sea Cucumber) as “endangered” in their Red List of Threatened Species in 2013. A. japonicus foodways complex can be observed in East Asia such as in China, South Korea, and Japan. For example, dried A. japonicus has been a major export commodity from Japan to China for at least 350 years. Almost all A. japonicus harvested in Japan are wild and not cultured. This is one of the prominent characteristics of Japanese A. japonicus fisheries. At the same time, the Japanese developed a taste for sea cucumbers from the 17^th century quite different from that of the Chinese. The first section of the present article compares Chinese, Korean, and Japanese A. japonicus foodways in the 16^th and 18^th centuries. A description of the trade of dried A. japonicus from Japan to China during the 18^th and 19^th centuries follows. The third and the fourth section of the article explore current A. japonicus fisheries: its land and export data. Around the mid 2000s, new types of sea cucumber products such as salt-preserved body wall, became common among Japanese processors. They are exported to China and processed into a dried product there. To confirming the new trends in the sea cucumber trade, an exploration of Japanese A. japonicus in the Hong Kong and Chinese markets is provided. Then, the article points out the problems related to the shift of sea cucumber processing from dried to salt-preserved products. Finally, the article introduces efforts of local sea cucumber fishermen and processors to enhance the domestic sea cucumber market in order to maintain sustainable sea cucumber fisheries. Due to page restrictions, the present article will provide the first two sections and the rest will come out on a different occasion.

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