Enzymatic prevention of health risks in food

• The review deals with the health risks acrylamide, celiac disease, and PAHs.
• Different enzymes are introduced to avoid the presence of the responsible compounds.
• The enzymatic action and production as well as in vivo studies were presented.

The potentially carcinogenic and neurotoxic compound acrylamide occurs in commonly consumed starch-based foods. Asparaginases hydrolyze the precursor asparagine to aspartate and ammonia and promise a potential way to reduce the amount of free asparagine in the starting materials of food production.Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder which is considered to be present in approximately 1% of population. Gluten-derived peptides were identified with important physiological relevance due to their resistance to gastric and pancreatic peptidases. Prolyl-specific endopeptidases cleave the toxic peptides and thus alleviate gluten intolerance.The smoke flavor compound vinylguaiacol was produced via microbial transformation of ferulic acid. The advantages of the cold flavor generation are obvious, as the risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon formation is completely eliminated.