Risk-Benefit assessment of foods: Development of a methodological framework for the harmonized selection of nutritional, microbiological, and toxicological components

Edible Insects: Global Research Trends, Biosafety Challenges, and Market Insights in the Mexican Context

The growing global interest in edible insects as a sustainable protein source has positioned them as a promising solution to food security challenges. In Mexico, entomophagy is deeply embedded in cultural traditions, particularly in Oaxaca, where grasshoppers, leafcutter ants, and red agave worms form an integral part of the region's intangible heritage. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of global research on edible insects (2009-2023) using Scopus and tools such as VOSviewer and Bibliometrix to analyze 218 publications. The analysis highlighted research trends, influential authors, and key themes, including nutrition, biosafety, and sustainability. To complement the bibliometric study, an exploratory analysis of edible insect commercialization in Oaxaca was conducted, focusing on virtual platforms and local markets. The findings reveal consistent global growth in edible insect research, with Mexico contributing six publications between 2020 and 2023. Despite advancements in safety standards and regulatory frameworks globally, Mexico still lacks formal sanitary controls and regulations for insect-based products. Nevertheless, its diverse commercialization efforts and rich cultural heritage, particularly in Oaxaca, showcase its potential to bridge tradition and innovation. This study highlights the urgent need for regulatory frameworks and research capacity to ensure safety, preserve cultural identity, and sustainably expand Mexico's edible insect market.

Risk-benefit assessment of foods and its role to inform policy decisions: outcome of an international workshop

Policy decisions in public health require consideration and evaluation of trade-offs for which transparency and science-based evidence is needed. Improvement of decision-support tools is essential to help guide food policy decisions that promote healthy diets and meet the challenges of food systems without compromising food security, food safety, and sovereignty. Risk-benefit assessment of foods (RBA) is an established methodological approach designed to inform policy decisions within the area of nutrition and food safety. Despite methodological developments, translation of RBA findings into policies is still limited. In this context, a stakeholder workshop held in May 2023 gathered RBA experts and food regulators from Europe to identify the challenges, obstacles and opportunities in using evidence generated through RBAs to inform food policy decisions. A structured process was implemented to collect their views through online surveys, breakout groups, and plenary discussions. As a secondary objective, food regulators' views on other approaches for holistic risk assessment fit for food systems analysis were also explored. This paper summarizes the main findings of the workshop and discusses policy implications and future perspectives to improve the area of RBA and its role in food policymaking.

Substituting red meat with insects in burgers: Estimating the public health impact using risk-benefit assessment

In Western societies, reducing red meat consumption gained prominence due to health, environmental, and animal welfare considerations. We estimated the public health impact of substituting beef with house cricket (Acheta domesticus) in European diets (Denmark, France, and Greece) using the risk-benefit assessment (RBA) methodology, building upon the EFSA-funded NovRBA project. The overall health impact of substituting beef patties with insect powder-containing patties was found to be impacted by the amount of cricket powder incorporated in the patties. While using high amounts of cricket powder in meat substitutes may be safe, it does not inherently offer a healthier dietary option compared to beef. Adjustment of cricket powder levels is needed to yield a positive overall health impact. The main driver of the outcome is sodium, naturally present in substantial amounts in crickets. Moreover, the way that cricket powder is hydrated before being used for the production of patties (ratio of powder to water), influences the results. Our study highlighted that any consideration for dietary substitution should be multidimensional, considering nutritional, microbiological and toxicological aspects, and that the design of new food products in the framework of dietary shifts should consider both health risks and benefits associated with the food.

Guidance on risk-benefit assessment of foods

The EFSA Scientific Committee has updated its 2010 Guidance on risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods. The update addresses methodological developments and regulatory needs. While it retains the stepwise RBA approach, it provides additional methods for complex assessments, such as multiple chemical hazards and all relevant health effects impacting different population subgroups. The updated guidance includes approaches for systematic identification, prioritisation and selection of hazardous and beneficial food components. It also offers updates relevant to characterising adverse and beneficial effects, such as measures of effect size and dose-response modelling. The guidance expands options for characterising risks and benefits, incorporating variability, uncertainty, severity categorisation and ranking of different (beneficial or adverse) effects. The impact of different types of health effects is assessed qualitatively or quantitatively, depending on the problem formulation, scope of the RBA question and data availability. The integration of risks and benefits often involves value-based judgements and should ideally be performed with the risk-benefit manager. Metrics such as Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) can be used. Additional approaches are presented, such as probability of all relevant effects and/or effects of given severities and their integration using severity weight functions. The update includes practical guidance on reporting results, interpreting outcomes and communicating the outcome of an RBA, considering consumer perspectives and responses to advice.

Approaches to risk-benefit assessment of seafood consumption: lessons learned from an evidence scan

Qualitative and quantitative risk-benefit assessments (RBA) can be used to support public health decisions in food safety. We conducted an evidence scan to understand the state of the science regarding RBA in seafood to help inform seafood dietary advice in the United States. We collected published RBA studies assessing seafood consumption, designed inclusion and exclusion criteria to screen these studies, and conducted systematic data extraction for the relevant studies published since 2019. Our findings indicate the selection of health risks and benefits does not generally follow a systematic approach. Uncertainty and variability in RBAs is often not addressed, and quantitative RBAs making use of a single health metric generally have not been leveraged to directly support published regulatory decisions or dietary guidance. To elevate the role of RBA in supporting regulatory decision-making, risk assessors and risk managers must work together to set expectations and goals. We identified the need for a prioritization phase (e.g., multicriteria decision analysis model) to determine the risks and benefits of greatest public health impact to inform the RBA design. This prioritization would consider not only the degree of public health impact of each risk and benefit, but also the potential for risks and benefits to converge on common health outcomes and their importance to subpopulations. Including a prioritization could improve the utility of the RBAs to better inform risk management decisions and advance public health. Our work serves to guide the United States Food and Drug Administration's approaches to RBA in foods.