Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Applied Food Technology, cilt.12, sa.2, ss.105-122, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)
Alternative plant and seaweed
protein sources other than soy and pea have gained significant interest as
sustainable replacements of animal proteins in the last decades. However,
despite a large food safety literature base, there are concerns about their
food safety risks. The current study aims to synthesize the existing knowledge
and gaps on safety risks associated with brewers' spent grain (BSG), grapes,
hazelnuts, potatoes, pumpkins, and seaweed. A systematic review between 2003
and 2023 was conducted in the PubMed database to identify microbial, chemical,
mycotoxins, heavy metals, and allergenic risks in the key commodities. The
records obtained were exported into an online reference management platform,
screened by inclusion and exclusion search strings, and the duplicates were
removed. Finally, two reviewers assessed the eligibility of the full-text
articles. The findings demonstrated that 9127 papers were identified, and 1639
of them were left for eligibility assessment. The reviewers finally included
144 articles.Amongst the commodities, the most safety studies were on grapes,
with 55 papers, followed by potatoes (n=38), seaweed (n=21), hazelnuts (n=19),
pumpkin (n=9), and BSG (n=2), respectively. Based on the risk type, heavy
metals were the most studied ones, with 49 papers, followed by mycotoxins
(n=31), microbial risks (n=23), chemical contaminants (n=21), and allergenic
risks (n=20), respectively. To meet the growing need for plant and seaweed
proteins, their food safety aspects should be extensively studied to deliver
safe, healthy, and affordable substitutes based on robust safety standards.