Mark Mooney

Mark Mooney

My name is Dr Mark Mooney and I am a Senior Lecturer within the Institute for Global Food Security. I am Coordinator of the Food Safety Distance Learning PgCert/PgDip/MSc programmes offered by QUB.

Location Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland

Activity

  • Thank you also for your contributions.......

  • Very interesting - We will be sending a delegation from QUB to South Africa this month to discuss opportunities for collaboration in the area of food security - will try to ensure we link up with these guys........

  • Good point on effect of processing on toxin levels - a lot of interest currently in different processes / methods which may remove / reduce mycotoxin levels in feed / food. Question is could the breakdown products arising from the destruction of the parent mycotoxin compounds be still toxic? Or potentially even more toxic??

  • Many thanks Alex - also we appreciate your various contributions throughout the course

  • Many thanks Jackie - we have also appreciated your input over the past couple of weeks - has made it enlightening for us too......

  • Certainly agree with this - we have had some public awareness campaigns reminding people to properly cook food to avoid microbiological issues..........developing trend to have "rare" burgers - which is definitely not a good idea!! https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/burgers

  • I think this is some thing where research is ongoing - particularly with regard to the type and level of meat consumption e.g. red meat and processed meats - https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/Monographs-Q&A_Vol114.pdf

  • This is probably an issue with relying on RASFF too much - it essentially only reports on what is been tested and reflects the frequency of that testing - for example fipronil alerts are so high not only because there was a recent issue in the EU, but because when it was discovered to be an issue a lot more testing for fipronil began and obviously more...

  • Alex - this seems be something we all can see in some conversations - so nothing personal or directed at you from us..........I think it is asking you do YOU want to mute the conversation rather than telling you to "mute it".........some controversy if you can provide any is welcome as it is always stimulating! Will figure out what happens when a conversation...

  • Switzerland have closely aligned their food safety regulations to the EU - and plan to have even closer alignment in the future - hence there are bilateral agreements with the EU on food issues - with membership of the RASFF network been facilitated by these. Obviously, one would assume that it would be in the best interests of the UK to follow suit, but what...

  • RASFF put together reports on an annual basis - this is the link to the most recent 2017 report - https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/food-fraud_network_activity_report_2017.pdf

  • Maybe this consumer version worth a quick look - https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/consumers/

  • We should probably also have provided a link to the consumer RASFF portal - which is more user friendly - obviously with consumers in mind and focuses on country specific and current notifications of relevance -https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/consumers/

  • I think the assumption among most people working within the UK food sector is that the UK will remain aligned to EU food regulations if a deal on Brexit can be made - but if that does happen this will impact on the future trade deals (???) with other parts of the world we are being promised.........so for the time being no one knows what the outcome will be....

  • Hi Norazleen - hope to meet you face-to-face here in Belfast on the first day of the MSc Advanced Food Safety course on the 24th September - you will be receiving some more details from us on that before you start.............

  • Hi Rhoda hope to talk do you directly during the course of the QUB Food Safety online distance learning programme which you will be starting on 24th September - http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Filestore/Filetoupload,817304,en.pdf

  • Hi Elvis hope to talk do you directly during the course of the QUB Food Safety online distance learning programme which you will be starting on 24th September - http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Filestore/Filetoupload,817304,en.pdf

  • Hi Lweendo hope to talk do you directly during the course of the QUB Food Safety online distance learning programme which you will be starting on 24th September - http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Filestore/Filetoupload,817304,en.pdf

  • @LYDIACHRISTELLAUWINEZA Good you enjoyed it Lydia - I believe you will be joining our Food Safety distance learning programme at QUB on 24th September so we will have many more hopefully enlightening discussions on wider food safety issues - http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Filestore/Filetoupload,817304,en.pdf

  • Good you enjoyed it Kehinde - I believe you will be joining our Food Safety distance learning programme at QUB on 24th September where we will revisit this and other issues in some more detail - http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofBiologicalSciences/Filestore/Filetoupload,817304,en.pdf

  • Think somebody was listening to my query with regard to glyphosate levels in organic foods - see https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal/#.W3YATiRKiT8

    43 out of 45 conventionally grown oat samples contained glyphosate - 5 out of 16 organic oat samples positive

    Might need to get my porridge tested too! Some common brands here and given...

  • Not sure if we have anyone from the food processing sector with us, but I assume they would say product labeling is seeking to "inform" the consumer rather than mislead? Perhaps less ambiguous terminology would help - following a conversation with a leading UK pork supplier last week, I am still trying to get my head around "outdoor reared" and "outdoor bred"...

  • @AlexandreaVanDerTuin Whether something is considered harmful or toxic to us is dependent on the levels of that chemical we are exposed to - so whilst a chemical may be shown to be toxic (and as you know differing opinions on glyphosate safety currently..........) - that toxicity may only become evident at certain levels of exposure. So that is why regulatory...

  • @AlexandreaVanDerTuin Essentially glyphosate-based herbicides can be used on all types of crops - this is a USDA report demonstrating that - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-pJR4cGo9ckb3k4UDczbVdiT1E/view

    Obviously, it's use in organic production is not allowed - but un-degraded glyphosate found in the environment (water, soil, air etc) could contaminate...

  • Many crops are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate - so when herbicides containing glyphosate (e.g. Monsanto's Roundup) are applied to such GM crops only the weeds are affected and killed. So Roundup cannot be referred to as GM - other than it is used often in conjunction with GM crops..........BUT Roundup is also used in non-GM crop production...

  • Perhaps - but is it clear that substitution has taken place? If the consumer knows and can choose whether to have the "original" or "substituted" food then noone is been misled???

  • @ChinazaArinzechukwu Good point - and certainly essential food safety label info which all consumers should refer to - however n UK we had some recent incidences involving "use by" dates - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/28/uks-top-supplier-of-supermarket-chicken-fiddles-food-safety-dates

  • Tom - these are the food ingredients most commonly reported to be involved in food adulteration incidences - so in 11% of all reported adulterant incidences, milk has been involved in some way - how these %'s have been calculated has been quite liberal so any association with a reported incident would lead to that ingredient been included - therefore whilst...

  • Maybe a little bit off-topic - but should we be more worried about what is in our honey - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/honey-tests-reveal-global-contamination-by-bee-harming-pesticides ? Or does this actually highlight that we really need to be sure where our honey has come from and how it has been produced??

  • Interesting article - https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/honey-gate-how-europe-is-being-flooded-with-fake-honey/

    Maybe we need to be putting "Made in China" on some of our honey labels???

  • Some recent food fraud incidences relating to India - worrying on the one hand.......but perhaps more reassuringly it is been detected and reported...

  • Mark Mooney made a comment

    On a more general note with regards to food labeling, and not just with respect to food safety issues, the question has to be asked how do we as the consumer perceive and understand the information on our food labels – clearly producers and retailers are keen to differentiate (based on quality, animal welfare standards etc.) between products that can be...