Food Quality and Health
This course aims to contribute to the acquisition and / or updating of professional and scientific skills in the area, in order to improve the Quality and Food Safety in Portugal, indispensable in the guarantor of public health, in line with the requirements of the European Community, through:
Acquisition of knowledge about the components, with physiological activity, present in animal and vegetal foods.
Study of functional foods, food supplements and novel foods.
Study of the main changes produced in food by the manufacture technology, storage and transport and their implication in the nutritional value and health of the consumer.
Application of appropriate methodologies for the analysis of food analytes, in order to characterize and control the quality of these matrices.
Definition of the main health risks associated with food intake, including human exposure to chemical, physical and microbiological agents.
Assessment of the toxicological effect of additives, residues and contaminants on food, as well as toxics of natural origin and selection of methods of analysis for their quantification.
Introduction of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) system implementation principles and stages of its implementation.
Development of technical / scientific concepts related to water quality and presentation of strategies for effective control of the quality of water for human consumption, from abstraction to the public water supply network.
Study of national and Community legislation that regulates the food and water quality for human consumption.
Definition of the objectives and importance of sensory evaluation, namely in the selection, training and control of panels of tasters and comparison of results with instrumental measurements.
Integrated study of the evaluation, management and communication of risks along the food chain and search for biomarkers of exposure, effect and susceptibility for control and prevention of the risk of exposure to genotoxic and non-genotoxic agents.
Food and public health.
Food industry and Pharmaceutical industry.
In the case of the food industry:
• Production;
• Quality control;
• HACCP - Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point;
• New foods;
• Risk assessment and communication.
In the pharmaceutical industry:
•Food suplements;
• Interactions between dietary supplements and drugs;
• Interactions between food and drugs.
Access and ingress
Holders of a bachelor's degree or legal equivalent in the scientific areas of the course.
