Quality and safety of infant formulas, functional foods enhanced by new standards
The standards will be incorporated into a future edition of the FCC, published by the US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), following a three-month period in which the scientific nonprofit organization will accept public comments on the proposals and consider any suggested modifications. FCC’s industry standards help ensure an ingredient’s quality for consumers as well as for food manufacturers who purchase the ingredient for use in their products.
Nucleotides are present in higher doses in human milk than in cow-based infant formulas-and are thus routinely added to infant formulas today. The three new nucleotide standards proposed for FCC inclusion are for disodium 5’-uridylate, 5’-adenylic acid and 5’-cytidylic acid. In addition to designating the identity, purity and impurities of the ingredients, the three new FCC standards include validated test methods that provide repeatable means of measuring the ingredients’ components.