Gabriela Precup

• PhD
• Scientific Officer at EFSA European Food Safety Authority

Gut microbiota has a profound impact on human health. Emerging data shows that dietary patterns are associated with different communities of bacterial species within the gut. Prevotella species have been correlated with plant rich diets, abundant in carbohydrates and fibres. Dysbiosis within the gut ecosystem has been associated with the developmen...

Fruit and vegetable by-products are in general thrown away and can cause environmental problems, even though they are a valuable source of bioactive compounds, which may be used for innovative food production. The present work focused on achieving a new type of dessert, a “Sweetburger”, by restructuring its molecular components with the aid of mole...

Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens (NDA) was asked to deliver an opinion on the safety of frozen, dried and powder forms of whole yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor larva) as a novel food (NF) pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. The term yellow mealworm refers to the larva...

The European Commission requested EFSA to update the scientific guidance for the preparation of applications for authorisation of novel foods, previously developed following the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 on novel foods. This guidance document provides advice on the scientific information needed to be submitted by the applicant towards d...

The European Union (EU) is committed to transitioning toward a circular economy model, with food waste being one of the areas to be targeted. To close the loop of food waste generated during food processing and discarded at the retail or consumption phases, research and innovation parties proposed to valorize agro-food by-products to produce novel...

There was an error in the original publication [...]

Pulse proteins stand as promising food ingredients with the potential to sustainably contribute to the nutritional needs of a growing world population. While benefiting from enhanced functionality and tailored biological activity towards health promotion, safety- and sensory-related issues may challenge the overall acceptability of pulse-based prod...

The book was inadvertently published with an incorrect affiliation. Ermolaos Ververis is affiliated to National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, School of Medicine, Athens, Greece and EFSA, Nutrition and Food Innovation Unit, Novel Foods Team, Parma, Italy.

In the European Union, insects and products thereof fall under Regulation (EU) 2283/2015 on Novel Foods, as they were not consumed to a significant degree within the EU before 15 May 1997. This chapter elucidates the risk assessment process performed by EFSA, highlighting the various elements considered when assessing the safety of insect-derived f...

Simple Summary Xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS) are considered indigestible fibers that could support the growth of potentially beneficial gut microbes, thus classified as “prebiotics”. Prebiotics are “a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit” as defined by the International Scientific Association for P...

Xylo-oligosaccharides are sugar oligomers with 2~7 xylose units considered non-digestible fibers that can be produced from biodegradable and low-cost biomass like wheat straw. An integrated approach consisting of hydrothermal pretreatment, alkaline treatment, enzymatic treatment and the combinations thereof was applied to overcome the recalcitrance...

The consumer awareness towards healthier diets and the impact of nutrition on health has triggered an increase in the production and commercialization of foods with health claims. The scientific literature classifies these food products as functional foods, with a role in promoting health and preventing diseases, and they had a market share of almo...

The consumer’s shift toward natural and superior foodstuffs for healthier lifestyles has become more popular, with a focus on whole-grain cereals, fruit, and vegetable consumption. According to FAO, the third part of the nourishment produced globally for human feeding is wasted, with 39% of wastage occurring in the food manufacturing industry. The...

https://www.slideshare.net/EFSA_EU/effost-2020-novel-foods-239298954

Download a copy at: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1bObI3RC05-zS0 The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been involved in the risk assessment of novel foods since 2003. The implementation of the current novel food regulation in 2018 rendered EFSA the sole entity of the European Union responsible for such safety evaluations. The risk assess...

A new generation of probiotic functional beverages using bioactive compounds from agro-industrial waste, by Dan Cristian Vodnar et al., highlights the functional beverage sector as nowadays consumers are more health-conscious and interested in the active role of food to prevent lifestyle diseases which are menacing the wellness of society. The deve...

prebiotic food sources

80% of the grape harvest is used in the winemaking industry, resulting in huge amounts of waste which are still rich in phenolic compounds, while the same percentage of polyphenols are found in apple peel, whose total antioxidant capacity is five-to-six-fold higher than that of apple flesh. The aim of this research is the characterization of grape...

An alternative therapy to diarrhoeal episodes induced by E. coli is represented by probiotic strains (e.g Lactobacillus), which are able to maintain the gut micro-flora in optimal parameters. This work highlights the inhibitory potential of probiotics (L. plantarum ATCC 8014) over the enteropathogenic bacteria like E. coli ATCC 25922. For this stud...

During biodiesel production, massive amounts of raw glycerol are created generating an environmental issue and the same time an increase of biodiesel production cost at the same time. This raw glycerol could be converted by specific strains into value-added products, like 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD), an important monomer used in the synthesis of biode...

Present poster is a short presentation of spray drying microencapsulation technique for probiotics.

This review summarized the current knowledge on probiotics and on the effects that different conditions have under this type of bacteria. The purpose of this review was to evaluate the survival rate/resistance or viability of different probiotic bacteria under several conditions, such as: processing, food composition, storage, freezing, thawing, r...