Monica Parvu

Food additives use in Romania (2009).

Food additives are diverse substances not consumed as food, that are not specific food ingredients, have or not a nutritional value, but are intentionally added to food stuff in technological purposes. In 2009, as in the previous years, the use of main food additives was monitored, in the frame of the National Program II (the monitoring of the determinant health factors from the work and life environment). Data from the Territorial Public Health Authorities were gathered and analyzed at the Public Health Regional Center of Targu Mures. A number of 181 food producers were checked out, originating in 33 Romanian counties. The total number of foodstuff evaluated for additives content was 1541 , from which 82,28% meat and meat products, 12,52% soft drinks, 5% diary products and 0,19% fruit and vegetable preserves. After the label and the conformity certificate control we concluded that most of the time the additives on label are identical with those used in the recipe. Only in 2,16 % of the cases (1,58% of the soft drinks, 0,46% of the meat products and 0,12% of the diary products) this criterion was not respected. The most used additives were: monosodium glutamate and sodium nitrite for meat products, carrageen and polyphosphates for diary products, organic acids and pectin for fruit preserves and citric acid and sodium benzoate for soft drinks. Some unauthorized or interdicted additives were also identified: sucralose, baker yeast glycan, propylene glycol, propyl gallate and butyl hidroxyanisol (1). Taking in account the Regulation nr. 1333/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Food Additives Council, article number 27 (“The monitoring of food additive intake”)(2), the conclusion is that in the following years the additive evaluation has to be carried out continuously and completed with an evaluation of the actual food additive intake .

Studies for Growing Horses Evaluation for their Classification

The evaluation of English Thoroughbred growing horses (2 ½ years) was done individually, before they were tested for classification. It was based on the following criteria: origin and exterior appearance (body size, conformation and walk). Each character or trait was evaluated on a scale from 0 to 10. The evaluation of horse origin was done using the method of points, based on pedigree analysis. The evaluation according to body size was done by biometry and gravimetry, determining the height, body mass, thorax perimeter and cannon diameter. Body conformation was evaluated on three groups of body parts: head, neck and trunk; limbs; constitution, muscles, tendons and ligaments. For evaluation, the data were correlated with the animal genotypes, established by genetic markers. The genetic markers considered by the investigation were the haemoglobin and transferrin. Two genotypes were identified at the haemoglobin locus and five genotypes at the transferrin locus. After evaluation, the animals were classified as follows: 37% in record class; 51% in elite class and 12% in first class. The young horses classified in record and elite classes, which displayed a high geneticpotential were retained in the stud to be trained for classification. The balance was put out for sale.

Use of pollen substituent in bees feed.

SUMMARY The experiment was conducted in a private apiary on 12 Carpathian Foti bee families. The bees were kept in multi-tier beehives. The resi stance to wintering was evaluated according to several apicultural parameters: state of the families, manner of wintering, size of the population, quality of the queen. The contro l group received no feeding supplement, group 1 received supplemental feeding consisting of syrup with pollen replacer during autumn, while group 2 received supplemental feeding consisting of syrup with pollen replacer during autumn and cakes during winter. The use of the pollen replacer in autumn increased egg laying during this period increasing thus the size of the population over the winter. The supplemental cakes with pollen replacer given over winter stimulated bees resistance to wintering, bee mortality being signif icantly lower.