NUTRITIONAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND SAFETY EVALUATION OF FOOD CROPS

In sustained and consistent efforts to improve food security, numerous and different methods are proposed and used in the production of food crops and farm produce to meet the demands of consumers. However, unregulated, and indiscriminate methods of production present another problem that may expose consumers of these food crops to potential health risks. Therefore, it is imperative that a thorough assessment of farm produce is carried out due to the growing trend of health-conscious consumers preference for minimally processed or raw farm produce. This study evaluated the safety and nutritional quality of food crops. The objectives were to compare the nutritional quality of organic and conventional food crops in one hand, and on the other to evaluate the safety of food crops with respect to trace metal pollutant and relevant public health pathogenic microorganism contamination. We conducted a broad systematic search of peer-reviewed published literatures from databases and search engines such as Google Scholar, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web-of-Science. This study concluded that there is no conclusive evidence to support the notion of nutritional superiority of organic food crops over their inorganic counterparts and that there are documented health risks associated with food crops irrespective of the types of production systems.