Speciation issues in food control - are we ready?

Full text: Our understanding of the mechanisms of biological activities and biotransformation of trace elements has improved during recent years with the help of chemical speciation studies. However, the most important practical application of elemental speciation is in the area of toxicology. Toxicological knowledge on the individual chemical elemental species should lead to more specific legislation of hazardous substances. Presently, European legislation concerning food safety is based on total element concentrations expressed as maximum limits. The lecture focuses on the present situation for speciation in food control and discusses the latest and expected future developments within this area. (author)