Food and nutrition

ANSES has carried out two specific expert appraisals on breast milk, to follow on from its study on dietary exposure of non-breastfed children under three years of age to chemical contaminants. The results show the importance of reducing exposure to chemical contaminants that accumulate in the environment and the body throughout life, and can then be found in breast milk. At the same time, ANSES confirms the beneficial effects of consuming breast milk, which may reduce the risk of overweight or certain diseases in children.

Following on from its work on the dietary guidelines of the French National Health and Nutrition Programme (PNNS), ANSES decided to take a closer look at the health effects of how food intake is distributed throughout the day. At the same time, it also looked at the risks associated with children not eating breakfast.

Reducing added sugars in food is one of the main strategies for preventing obesity and diabetes. ANSES has produced a comprehensive report on trends in the use of sweetening ingredients or ingredients conveying sweetness – sugar, glucose, glucose-fructose syrups, honey, fruit juices, caramel, artificial sweeteners, etc. – in beverages and processed foods. It examined the ingredient lists on more than 54,000 products on the market between 2008 and 2020, identified by OQALI, the French Food Observatory. This report shows that the majority of products, even savoury products, contained at least one sweetening ingredient or ingredient conveying sweetness. However, the Agency notes a decline in the use of sweetening ingredients over the last 10 years, particularly sugar syrups and artificial sweeteners. ANSES also stresses that it is possible to further reduce the use of sweetening ingredients in products.

Like every year-end, the festive season can be synonymous with minor inconveniences as well as more serious accidents for you and your loved ones: children swallowing small objects or decorative plants, food poisoning due to poorly-preserved food, and so on. To protect yourself as best you can, here's our advice for a risk-free festive season.

Several teams from ANSES are going to make cheese in a laboratory, in order to study the risk of pathogenic organisms being transmitted via cheese consumption. This will be a complex task, due to the precautions that will need to be taken to avoid any external contamination by the micro-organisms under study.

To make it easier for the entire scientific community to access collections of micro-organisms, in line with the "One Health" approach, ANSES took part in the European CARE project, funded by the One Health European Joint Programme (EJP) coordinated by the Agency.

After more than five years, the One Health European Joint Programme (One Health EJP) will be ending soon. The program coordinated by ANSES, helped to implement the One Health approach to manage foodborne outbreaks across Europe. In this special page find out more about the results of the program and the researchs ANSES coordinated.

Listeria monocytogenes is a ubiquitous bacterium found in food, livestock and wild animals, soil, water and vegetation. The European ListAdapt project focused on the ability of strains of this bacterium to adapt to these different environments. It found that this ability is independent of the strains' environments of origin or their belonging to a given sub-group.

A multitude of players are involved in the surveillance of pathogenic bacteria that can be transmitted through food, from farm to fork. The European MATRIX project, which has just come to an end, sought to improve collaboration between the various bodies involved in the surveillance systems set up in each European country.

ANSES holds the final meeting of the One Health European Joint Programme (OHEJP). The meeting will be an opportunity to look back on the work conducted during the five years of the OHEJP. It will be held at the French Ministry of Health and Prevention on the 11th (afternoon) and 12th (morning) of September and will be broadcast live.