Nanomaterials in food products and their package: comparative analysis of risks and advantages

Nanomaterials (NMs) are applied in many spheres related to food products manufacturing including nano-dispersed forms of food substances, nano-encapsulates, and nano-micelles, food additives with improved functional characteristics, new packaging materials with enhanced gas-, photobarrier, and antimicrobic properties. High chemical and catalytic activity of nanoparticles (NPs) and their ability to penetrate through biological barriers and accumulate in a body makes a lot of NMs toxic, and their toxic properties are to be taken into account when assessing safety of the above-mentioned products. There are some priority NMs from the point of view of risk assessment and prospective hygienic standardization; they are silver NPs, NPs of amorphous silicon dioxide (aerosil), titanium dioxide NPs, and carbon nanotubes. Results of toxicological-hygienic research performed on laboratory animals revealed that a probable allowable daily dose of silicon dioxide (SiO2) NPs consumed with food should not exceed 1 mg/kg of body weight...