This book contains contributions based on the proceedings of two symposia on food contamination held in London in April 1989 and May 1990, both of which were organised jointly by the Environment, Food Chemistry and Toxicology Groups of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The aim of these meetings was to assess the extraneous chemical contamination of food from two sources: firstly, food-chain contaminants - the presence of plant toxicants of fungal metabolites in food, or the contamination of food from environmental sources (airborne, aquatic and terrestrial); and secondly, food-production contami.