There is increasing contemporary appeal and interest in natural versus synthetic food and beverage colorants based on increasing health awareness and global demand for chemical-free food products. There are many commonalities in defining and regulating food colorants among countries and specifics are provided for the United States, the European Union, and Japan. Overall global guidance for food colorant safety and marketing is provided by international bodies such as the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) and contemporary safety assessment standards and regulations are in place in many countries to maximize protection of consumers.

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Consumers' demand for the replacement of synthetic color additives, along with the technical difficulties encountered with the use of natural colorants, has intensified research in this area. Currently, commercial natural colorants are derived mainly from a number of plant sources of carotenoids, anthocyanins, betanin, and chlorophylls, augmented by carotenoids obtained by microbial fermentation. The meticulous studies on the structural features, stability, and transformations during food processing and storage are providing a wealth of information on how to handle these notoriously unstable compounds. New and economically viable plant sources of anthocyanins and betacyanin and optimization of microalgal production of carotenoids to guarantee economic feasibility on an industrial scale are being pursued. Efficient and green extraction, stabilization methods, production of high quality colorants with wide color spectrum, and appraisal of human health effects are also important research objectives. Encapsulation, microencapsulation and nanoencapsulation are widely evaluated as stabilizing techniques.

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Safety assessment of food colorants are fundamentally similar in Japan, Europe, and the United States and involve large amounts of data for new colorants and active monitoring of existing approved colorants. Testing requirement are similar for artificial and natural food colorants and include assays for genetic damage and use of animal toxicity studies as surrogates for human exposures. All studies are currently conducted in compliance with internationally recognized Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) with study design, conduct and evaluation carried out by trained and certified scientific experts in accordance with country-specific and international published safety assessment guidelines.

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Color additives are an important ingredient in a wide range of food, beverage and consumer products. Surveys consistently show that consumers select and enjoy products because of their color. Color is often the first characteristic that influences the purchasing decision.
This article examines several interesting and unique aspects of color additive regulation in the United States. Understanding these requirements and procedures is important for companies that want to supply the U.S. market. This article will explore the process of synthetic color additive certification which is managed by the U.S.Food and Drug Administration, the provisional status of color additive lakes, and unique labeling restrictions for colors made from natural raw materials. The article will also address persistent questions about synthetic colors and the suggested connection to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. Finally, there will be an examination of gaps in the characterization and standardization of colors from natural raw materials.
Unfortunately, color additive characterization and regulation are not harmonized among the major industrial markets. Several developed countries have approved more color additives than the U.S. The current process for requesting approval of new color additives in the U.S. is very expensive for the manufacturers. Because different countries have different lists of approved color additives, companies are forced to create unique product formulations for different markets, resulting in higher research, development and production costs. The challenges related to color additive use are significant and in the United States the regulations and procedures are challenging.

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Results from questionnaires on food safety all show that the majority of the respondents are anxious about food additives. One of the main reasons from this consumer anxiety is that some people feel threatened by posting of groundless comments about food additives on the internet and in magazines. In addition, some books have been written based on unfounded claims about food additives being harmful and this also leads to consumer anxiety. Since consumer intake of food additives occurs automatically to a large degree, strict regulations on their effectiveness and safety have been developed. Consequently, use of food additives is permitted only after they are confirmed as safe. In this paper I introduce some examples of threats to consumers based on groundless information. Guidelines to file a food additive petition and the role of Food Additive Designation Consultation Center are also presented.

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The popularity of herbal medicines is growing steadily all over the world, and a large number of people are using these products for self-medication. Although these medicines are being widely used, and the number of available products is increasing exponentially, most of these compounds have not been properly evaluated for potential toxic or adverse effects. It is on this background that the National Toxicology Program has performed comprehensive 2-year rodent studies to evaluate the toxicity and safety of popular herbal medicines, including Aloe vera, ginkgo, ginseng, goldenseal, kava kava, milk thistle, and turmeric oleoresin. Here we review the pathological findings in rodents, with special emphasis on the carcinogenic potential of these compounds, which included liver tumor responses (goldenseal, ginkgo, kava), intestinal tumor response (aloe vera whole leaf non-decolorized extract) and thyroid tumor response (ginkgo). The results of these studies together with information gathered from additional clinical trials from other NIH institutes would provide a more complete evaluation of the risk and benefits from herbal medicine use.

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Koji mold, Aspergillus oryzae, is a filamentous fungus used for the production of traditional fermented foods, such as sake, soy sauce, and soybean paste (miso), in Japan. A. oryzae secretes various hydrolytic enzymes including amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes, the most important enzymes for manufacturing Japanese fermented foods. These hydrolytic enzymes have been used in the food and pharmaceutical industries for a long time. Several transcription factors that control the expression of hydrolytic enzymes have been identified. Our recent studies revealed that the regulatory mechanism of amylolytic gene expression is controlled by two transcription factors. In addition to induction of expression, gene expression of glycoside hydrolytic enzymes is strongly repressed by carbon catabolite repression when glucose is present. Four factors (CreA, CreB, CreC, and CreD) have been identified as regulators of carbon catabolite repression in filamentous fungi. Our recent studies also revealed that the molecular mechanism of glucose-induced repression of amylolytic gene expression is mediated by these four factors. This review introduces the A. oryzae hydrolytic enzymes that are used for various industrial applications and the molecular mechanism of amylolytic gene expression regulation. In addition, this review also introduces the efforts to use A. oryzae as a host strain for production of heterologous proteins and secondary metabolites.

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The Food Sanitation Act was revised on June 13, 2018. As a result of this revision, a positive list system was introduced for food contact products (utensils, containers and packaging). This system will come into effect on June 1, 2020. The format in the Japanese positive list system is different from that in the US and EU lists. Compliance with manufacturing management standards and with communication of information between companies is indispensable for operation of the positive list system. In this article, I will explain the details of the Japanese positive list system. Since the details of the system is still under consideration, please refer to the documents published by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for the latest information.

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The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare compiles survey results of pesticide residues in foods reported by local governments and quarantine stations. So far, the results for 1994-2015 have been published. Since there are differences in the types of pesticides between domestic and imported products, it is considered that the pesticides used differ from country to country.
Also, each year newly developed pesticides have been found, reflecting a change in detected pesticides over time. On the other hand, daily intake surveys are being conducted using the market basket survey method. So far, the results for 1991-2017 have been published. Using ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake), safety due to pesticide consumption has been evaluated. A total of 272 pesticides were investigated and 83 pesticides were detected. Based on the low level of these 83 pesticides in relationship to dietary intake, even if domestically distributed agricultural products continue to be consumed every day for a lifetime, it is considered that there is no health risk from residual pesticides.

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Nowadays dietary polyphenols, which are common components of vegetables, fruits, wine, and tea, have become recognized as a functional food factor having a potential role in chemoprevention against many disorders such as several kinds of cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, type II diabetes and neurodegenerative disease. Epidemiological studies and intervention studies have suggested that long-term polyphenol intake exerts favorable effects. However, in general, bioavailability of dietary polyphenols is very low and mostly the inactive conjugated metabolites circulate in the blood stream. Much remains to be investigated. The mechanism underlying disease risk reduction in humans remains largely unclear. What is the real target of polyphenols in vivo? How much is optimal intake for disease prevention or health promotion? The 9^th International Conference on Polyphenols and Health was held in Kobe last year, from November 28 to December 1, 2019. Fruitful discussions were held and innovative thinking and new ideas were exchanged.
In this article, current topics and future directions of research on polyphenols and health including contents of lectures at the conference are described according to the following points:
・ ADME (Absorption; Distribution; Metabolism; Excretion) and bioavailability
・Gut microbiota and function of metabolites
・New perspectives on intestinal and endogenous targets
・ Metabolic conversion (conjugation and deconjugation) in target sites
・Brain function and cognitive function
・ Construction of a database (food composition and contents, food intake and its biomarkers) and its practical use

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