Nutrition professor backs EFSA health claim methods

“I think this field needs more serious mainstream science and less legalistic reasoning.”

So Martijn Katan, PhD, Professor of Nutrition at Amsterdam's VU University Institute of Health Sciences, told Shane Starling during last week’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) meeting on gut and immune function claims.

In contrast to many others at the meeting, Katan said EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies had been “reasonably specific about a lot of things” but rightly remained vague in areas where the science did not meet the criteria it had established under the 2006 nutrition and health claims regulation.

“The cookbook approach is unscientific...I think EFSA is doing an excellent job in protecting European citizens from misleading claims.”