Abbreviation for "acceptable daily intake" (ETD permitted daily dose). This refers to the tolerable amount of a substance that a person can take in daily over their entire lifetime without any negative or adverse health effects. As a rule, the quantities are determined in animal experiments, whereby the relevant substances (pollutants) are ingested daily via the diet over a longer period of time. The information is then given in mg/kg body weight. An amount of substance that has not caused any changes in animal testing is called the no-effect level (NEL). This value is divided by 100 to calculate the maximum tolerable amount in humans. The "safety factor 100" is intended to take into account unknown risks, such as particularly sensitive individuals, extreme deviations from average consumption and other unknown factors. So if a dose of 100 mg/kg body weight per day is considered safe for the animal, the acceptable daily intake for humans would be only 1 mg/kg body weight/day. This is the ADI value.
Limits for certain substances
The definition "not specified" means that the tolerable dose could not or has not yet been determined. This is because even large quantities of many substances do not produce any effects in animal experiments. The ADI values are published by the WHO (World Health Organisation). Various substances in food and alcoholic beverages such as wines and spirits can be harmful above certain levels, which is why limit values have been defined. These are acetaldehyde, allergens, lead (see also under heavy metals), cadaverine, diammonium phosphate, acetic acid, proteins/gluten, ethyl carbamate, isoamylamine, histamine, caffeine, methanol, ochratoxin A, phenylethylamine, putrescine, sulphurous acid, silver chloride, thiamine and tyramine. The limit values for wine and wine products are prescribed by EU regulations.
Alcohol quantities
With regard to alcohol quantities, the WHO publishes a "presumably non-harmful upper limit". However, no ADI value is specified in order to prevent incorrect interpretations. There are also the codes TWI (Tolarable Weekly Intake = tolerable weekly intake) and PTWI (Provisional Tolarable Weekly Intake = provisionally tolerable weekly intake), as well as the MAK value (Maximum Workplace Concentration). The amount of alcohol consumed regularly that is presumably (!) not harmful to health is described under Health. Tabular lists of relevant substances can be found under the two keywords total extract (wine ingredients) and wine-making agents.
