SELENIUM

DIETARY SOURCES, PROPERTIES
AND ROLE IN HUMAN HEALTH

It is interesting to note that the definition of shelf life previously discussed does
not mention safety as a possible cause of food failure. Shelf life issues should not
be related to safety, as safety is a fundamental requirement for any food product
from manufacturing until consumption (European Commission [EC], 2002; Codex

Alimentarius Commission [CAC], 2003). Thus, in principle, the food product, prop-
erly packed and stored, must remain safe after the expiry date and even after suffer-
ing possible temperature abuses during storage and home handling. In other words,

although inextricably linked, food shelf life and safe life are not synonyms. As a
quality issue, shelf life is expected to be shorter than the corresponding safe life.
However, a deeper discussion of the relationship between food shelf life and safety
would be greatly advisable. Besides microbiological concerns for which specific
regulations and exhaustive guidelines have been developed in the last few decades,
potential safety risks may arise in food during storage due to the formation of toxic
compounds as a consequence of “silent” degradation reactions. When these events

are not responsible for changes in perceivable food quality, they are generally under-
estimated. This is probably the case of the accumulation into the food matrix of

oxidation reaction products or of compounds migrating from the packaging (Kubow,
1990; Ryan et al., 2009; Fiselier et al., 2010).