Lecturing

Teaching and Outreach

The NSERC-PFSNRA offers a graduate course, "NFS1212H: Regulation of Food Composition, Safety and Health Claims", which aims to provide students with an understanding of how new food products and ingredients are regulated to ensure a safe food supply. It is offered through the Department of Nutritional Sciences to current graduate students and to non-UofT students through the School of Continuing Studies every other year during the Fall semester. The 2021 course completed on December 18, 2022. The next course offering will be for the Fall 2022 semester.

Next Offering: September, 2022

Registration

Registration is now closed. Please check back in June, 2022 for updates and information on how to register for the course (September, 2022).

Course Description

The Canadian agri-food industry is producing new foods and food ingredients in response to consumer demand and lifestyle, new crops that offer advantages over traditional crops (e.g. improved resilience against pathogens or environmental stressors or enhanced nutritional attributes), and functional foods for the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. 

The goal of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the regulatory frameworks that are in place to ensure a safe food supply and to ensure communications made in food labeling, advertising and public health applications are not deceptive. The lectures will include individuals in government, industry, and academia.  Students will be exposed to several aspects of scientific and regulatory affairs and will have a unique opportunity to interact and discuss topics with experts in a variety of fields. Students will learn the structure and application of the Canadian Food and Drugs Act and Regulations, health claims and labelling, study design and standards of evidence for regulatory submissions, and the roles of government, industry and academia in managing the food supply.