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The big changes over recent years and their rapid development in Food Retailing have resulted in different shopping practices, for the institution, the hotel, restaurant and the home. Different cuisines have developed, foods purchased, both in cooking practices and eating habits, especially in the home. Gone are the old fashioned home economics, taking with them out of the diet much that was enjoyed and from which the families benefitted in health and stomach satisfaction. In very recent times, the changes have become bigger, developments more rapid, and the progress continues. Bigger and bigger stores, highly departmentalised, mechanical aids of every description, all under one roof, “complex” is an appropriate term for it; large open spaces for the housewife with a car. The development is in fact aimed at the bulk buyer — rapid turnover — the small household needs, not entirely neglected, but not specially catered for. Daily cash takings are collosal. This is what the small owner‐occupied general store, with its many domestic advantages, has come to fall in the late twentieth century.

Because of the bioaccumulation effect, organophosphorus pesticides cause long-term damage to mammals, even at small concentrations. The ability to perturb the phospholipid bilayer structure as well as the overstimulation of cholinergic receptors makes them hazardous to humans. Therefore, there is a need for a quick and inexpensive detection of organophosphorus pesticides for agricultural and household use. As organophosphorus pesticides are acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors, biosensors using this mechanism hold a great promise to meet these requirements with a fraction of reagents and time used for measurement comparing to laboratory methods. This study aims to manufacture AChE-coated, screen-printed carbon electrodes applicable in such amperometric biosensors.

AChE enzyme, known for catalytic activity for the hydrolysis of acetylthiocholine (ATCh), could be used to obtain electrochemically active thiocholine from acetylthiocholine chloride in aqueous solutions. Using Malathion’s inhibitory effect towards AChE, pesticides’ presence can be detected by reduction of anodic oxidation peaks of thiocholine in cyclic voltammetry.

The conducted research proved that it is possible to detect pesticides using low-cost, simple-to-manufacture screen-printed graphite (GR) electrodes with an enzymatic (AChE) coating. Investigated electrodes displayed significant catalytic activity to the hydrolysis of ATCh. Owing to inhibition effect of the enzyme, amperometric response of the samples decreased in pesticide-spiked solution, allowing determination of organophosphorus pesticides.

Printed electronics has grown significantly in recent years as well as research focused on carbon-based nanocomposites. Yet, the utilization of carbon nanocomposites in screen-printed electronics is still considered a novelty in the market. Biosensors have proved useful not only in laboratory conditions but also in home applications, as glucometers are a superior solution for glucose determination for personal use. Although pesticides could be detected accurately using chromatography, spectroscopy, spectrometry or spectrophotometry, the market lacks low-cost, disposable solutions for pesticide detection applicable for household use. With biosensing techniques and electric paths screen-printed with GR or graphene nanocomposites, this preliminary research focuses on meeting these needs.

“It is generally accepted that the food industry must be scientifically based to cope with the problems, particularly of public health, which arise as new processes of growing, manufacturing, packaging and preserving food depart even further from traditional ways.”

Wheat plants were grown in field plots of 3×3m area. After growth period of two months, the growing plants were sprayed with dimethoate and pirimicarb at the recommended dose. Spraying was repeated after a further 45 days. Plant samples were taken at intervals of zero, three, six, nine, 12 and 15 days after each application. A gradual and continuous degradation of the applied pesticides had taken place in the treated wheat shoots up to the end of the experiment. However, dimethoate showed more residues and persistence rather than pirimicarb. The break down and metabolism of the applied pesticides was correlated with some biochemical changes in the sprayed plants. Sampling dates of three and six days after application were the most critical periods to affect plant metabolism. A decline was noticed in chlorophyll, sugars and carbohydrates, total proteins and RNA content of wheat shoots as a function of the applied pesticides. Free amino acids were accumulated in the sprayed plants, meanwhile the DNA content did not show observable changes as a consequence of the applied pesticides treatment.

Bug Busting is a method of clearing head lice by the tutored use of a fine‐toothed plastic comb in association with ordinary shampoo and conditioner. It is becoming recognized as a viable alternative to pesticidal treatments at a time when their efficacy and safety are in question. Discusses the importance of providing parents with adequate instruction in the method and co‐ordinating their informed efforts on Bug Busting Days (31 October and 31 January). Describes the results of monitoring whole‐school participation.

The Commission appointed jointly by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization continues to plod its weary way towards the establishment of Codex standards for all foods, which it is hoped will eventually be adopted by all countries, to end the increasing chaos of present national standards. We have to go back to 1953, when the Sixth World Health Assembly showed signs of a stirring of international conscience at trends in food industry; and particularly expressed “the view that the increasing use of various chemical substances had … , created a new public health problem”. Joint WHO/FAO Conferences which followed initiated inter alia international consultations and the setting up of the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.

The succession of storms around the question of the disposal of the large quantities of corned beef called in or held up from the time of the Aberdeen Typhoid Epidemic can have done little to enhance the image of public administration. There was a profusion of statements, official and otherwise, and what seemed to be a fight between factions in the trade, with the position of the two Ministries involved none too clear; all this was thrown into a thorough ferment by political intervention by the Prime Minister himself. There can never have been anything quite like it in any branch of public health, not so much in what has been done, but in the way it was done.

Factory farming, artificial fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and more recently antibiotics have all added fuel to the great emotional fire that is fanned when scientists are seen to interfere with nature. There is no doubt that some aspects of the present day use of chemicals in agriculture do give cause for concern but if the aims of the farmers are to be realised we must view the situation objectively and assess the risks involved. The aims of the farmer are to provide more food, better food, cheaper food and a wider range of food. The problem of adequate food supplies has plagued the whole history of mankind and the situation is likely to deteriorate in the near future unless modern technology can be applied to alleviate the poverty and hunger found in many of the developing countries today.

Who would doubt that good has come from adding first, irradiated ergosterol and later calciferol, to milk powder and other infant foods ; over the years dosages have increased and at the same time vitamin D has. reached the child in cod‐liver oil and in proprietary solutions of various kinds. Rachitic children were once the rule rather than the exception; the Madonna and Child of some old Italian masters frequently showed the Infant with bowed legs, obviously accepted by the artist as not abnormal. Now the wheel is reaching its full cycle and a report has been published recommending substantial reductions in the quantities of vitamin D normally given to infants. This is the work of a committee appointed by the British Paediatric Association at the instance of the Ministry of Health. It gives details of biological assays of a proprietary fortified milk powder and of a cereal food; it makes some play of the fact that the manufacturer must add an “overage” of vitamin D in order to ensure that the product will not fall below the claimed potency during its market life. In the course of a day a child could receive as much as 4,000 units of vitamin D, if being given recently manufactured milk powder and cereal, together with cod‐liver oil (or its equivalent); the accepted requirement of the normal infant has been regarded as about 700–800 units.