Danish Ministry of Environment and Food

This paper proposes co-designing personas with users as a strategy to overcome a challenge inherent in the design of personas or fictitious users: On one hand, personas should appear realistic and believable as individuals, and on the other hand, personas should represent a broader range of users. By involving empirical users in all parts of the process of persona design, the risk of creating personas that are too stereotypical is minimized, as the participating users enrich the data on which the personas are based with up-to-date and firsthand contextual knowledge. Advantages of co-designing personas with users is illustrated by a case from higher education in which personas were co-designed with students as part of a project aiming at designing a smartphone application for Master's thesis students.

A selection of frequently consumed meat products were packed in two commercial types of plasticized PVC film with declared plasticizer compositions of 11 and 21% di-(ethylhexyl)adipate (DEHA), respectively. The meat products were analysed for DEHA after packaging and storage until their “use by” date. Pretreatment of the meat, including cutting, chopping, cooking and packaging, was performed according to normal practice in a Danish supermarket. All samples contained DEHA. In general the investigation showed that a high fat content in or at the surface of the meat and/or a high storage temperature and/or repeated repackaging with new film during treatment gave rise to the greatest amount of DEHA migration from the film into the meat. No significant differences in DEHA migration could be seen when comparing the two films, although they were quite different in terms of plasticizer composition. The DEHA concentration at the “use by” date in fresh lean trimmings and slices of pork leg was 1 – 2 mg/kg, whereas neck and strip loin with some fat at the surface contained about 5 – 10 mg/kg. More fatty types of meat such as minced beef and pork with 18 – 20% fat, packaged once in plasticized PVC, contained around 20 mg DEHA/kg. When previously packaged loin was cut into steaks or chops, repackaged, minced and repackaged again, the DEHA concentration doubled to around 40 mg/kg. Finally if meatballs were then produced from the said mince, repackaged and stored at 65°C for 24 h, the DEHA concentration reached 100 mg/kg. Based on the evaluations of DEHA given by the EU Scientific Committee for Food, the National Food Agency considers concentrations of DEHA in foods higher than 18 mg/kg to be unacceptable.

The development and evaluation of a flow injection inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric (FI-ICP-MS) method for the determination of copper and iodine in milk and milk powder has been described. The sample preparation is based simply on the dilution of the sample by an alkaline solution containing 0.05 mol/l potassium hydroxide and 0.07 mol/l tetramethylammonium hydroxide. Possible matrix interferences on the determination of copper were alleviated by the use of standard addition calibration. Detection limits (3s) were 0.94 microg l(-1) and 0.45 microg l(-1) for copper and iodine, respectively. Four different certified milk powder reference materials were analysed and the concentrations found were in a good agreement with the certified values indicating that the method is unbiased. Due to the simplicity of the method a high sample throughput is possible, approximately 90 samples can be analysed in one day. More than 100 samples of Danish raw milk were analysed and median values of 0.050 mg kg(-1) of Cu and 0.084 mg kg(-1) of I were found.

Following exposure to the food simulant olive oil for 10 days at 5, 20 or 40 degrees C a global migration ranging from 20 to 30 mg/dm2 was detected from a common 'low migration' PVC film plasticized with a mixture of di-(ethylhexyl)adipate (DEHA) and a polymeric plasticizer. In a laboratory experiment samples of cheese of the types most commonly consumed in Denmark were wrapped in this 'low migration' PVC film using a procedure simulating the actual pattern of use in retail shops. After a storage time of 2 h at 5 degrees C the level of DEHA was 45 mg/kg of cheese, which after 10 days increased to 150 mg DEHA per kg of cheese, corresponding to an estimated specific migration of 12 mg DEHA/dm2 of cheese surface. Based on statistics on dietary habits it is concluded that the retail packaging of small portions of cheese even in a 'low migration' PVC cling film may lead to consumer intakes of DEHA close to or above the tolerable daily intake of 0.3 mg/kg body weight as defined by the EEC Scientific Committee for Food. Furthermore, it is stressed that measurements of global migration followed by uncritical use of reduction factors may result in erroneous evaluation of the suitability of DEHA-plasticized cling film for the packaging of fatty foods.

Whey protein concentrates of cows’ milk are used widely in dairy products including infant formulas. A major component is the potent allergen bovine β‐lactoglobulin (BLG). Two easy and sensitive substrate‐amplified indirect competitive ELISAs for BLG, one using a rabbit polyclonal antibody (PAb) K97 raised against heat‐treated BLG, and another using a monoclonal antibody (MAb) 61B4 specific to the epitope Thr125‐Lys135 are described. Furthermore, a new whey protein test kit specific for BLG was tested. A new video‐based digital image processing system was used to read, evaluate and calculate data from the microtitre plates. The detection limit was 0.08 ng ml‐1 for the PAb assay, which was sufficient for the use of this assay as a test method for ‘milk‐free’ products. The detection limit was 3.2 ng ml‐1 for the MAb assay and 144 ng ml‐1’ for the commercially available kit. Thirteen commercially available infant formulas on the Danish market, including four hypoallergenic products and cows’ milk, were teste...

The biotransformation of 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]-pyridine (PhIP) and the protein binding of PhIP and 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (IQ) was studied using microsomes from PCB-pretreated or untreated male rats of the strains, Wistar, Fischer and Sprague-Dawley. The microsomal monooxygenases, P450IA1 and IA2, which are important for the biotransformation of heterocyclic amines, were quantified by immunoblots. The two metabolites detected, 2-amino-1-methyl-6-(4'-hydroxyphenyl)imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (4'OH-PhIP) and 2-hydroxyamino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (N2-OH-PhIP) were formed in similar amounts whereas no minor metabolites were found in our highly sensitive radiochemical assay. Irrespective of the rat strain used, pretreatment with PCB significantly induced both the activation and the detoxication in all three rat strains. Except for a significantly higher concentration of P450IA2 in microsomes from control and PCB induced Wistar rats, no major differences between the strains were found.

An investigation of residues of di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (DEHP) in retail whole milk in samples from one German and 14 Danish dairies is reported. The investigation was performed about six months after the use of DEHP-plasticized milk tubing was banned in Denmark. The results indicate a mean concentration of DEHP lower than 50 micrograms/litre in retail whole milk. Based on these data and the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) for DEHP of 25 micrograms/kg body weight laid down by the EEC Scientific Committee for Food, it is concluded that the intake of DEHP from milk and milk products does not, even through a whole life, constitute a danger to health for the Danish population.