# Effects of Heat Treatment Processes: Health Benefits and Risks to the Consumer
## 8 Problems of Heat Treatment Analyses and Approaches to Food Safety: A Future Road  
The overall effects on the chemical structure of the compounds (mainly molecular weight, bioactivity and toxicity) when seaweed is heat-processed are not well known, due to general analysis of the compounds in their natural state and not in the hydrolysate stage (caused by heat) with low molecular weight. Moreover, this information about the kinetics of heat processed seaweed vs. stability may be essential to obtain valuable insights into the effects of the processes, providing higher food safety levels and maintaining a similar product with stable compounds which can be bioavailable for humans [3; 31]. [PERSON] et al. demonstrated that three different ways of cooking brown seaweeds promoted different results. The blanching method promoted the stability of fucoxanthin, the boiling method produced higher antioxidant activity and steaming minimized the color change [12]. This supports the concept that chemical modification occurs during the heat process, which was demonstrated by the fucoxanthin content and the color after different types of heat process. Thus, it is important to have scientific data about the heat treatment process along with chemical characterization of the resulting product to obtain the best method of maintaining the important properties of seaweed; it is also important to find new methods of heat treatment that prevent the destruction of seaweeds' nutritional value. Furthermore, the performance of the heat treatment can make it hard to obtain purified compounds to be analyzed and characterized by a chemical method in a very rigorous manner [31]. As it is a complex compound with two distinct molecule fractions that are identified and characterized by different chemical methods, the possible combination of compounds or hydrolyzed molecules producing novel compounds can be achieved by the [PERSON]'s reaction combining amino acids and reducing sugars, giving particular characteristics to food, such as color, texture and flavor [40].  
Moreover, the presence harmful compounds, such toxins or heavy metals, in seaweeds needs to be carefully checked [41]. In this case, it was found that drying the seaweed and other types of processing (such as washing or cooking) reduced toxins and the concentration other volatile compounds (such as iodine or arsenic) in seaweeds, mainly solar drying, boiling and seaweed dehydration [42; 43; 44]. Despite these reports, there is a long road to understanding how thermal treatment affects the toxic concentration in seaweeds and, more importantly the toxic bioavailability and bioaccessibility [43]. At this moment, there is a need for more research to fully understand the effect of heat treatment on toxins and harmful compounds in seaweeds.  
Above all, there is a question that remains before the scale-up of seaweed consumption, namely how the heat process affects the objectives, because the techniques have advantages and disadvantages scientifically. However, to scale up and define the best method of preparing seaweed using heat, it is also necessary to see if it is practicable at a large scale because the system/process costs cannot surpass the economic potential of the commercial method.