Maria Śmiechowska¹, Marcin Pigłowski^1,

Asparagus is a green vegetable, available only seasonally, and interest in it in is growing because of its health benefits. However, since there is a lack of studies in this area, the aim of the article was to identify risk factors affecting the quality and consumption of asparagus as an exemplary seasonal vegetable. The current state of knowledge on the nutritional, dietary and medicinal properties of edible asparagus was presented, an analysis of notifications reported on asparagus in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was carried out, and a bibliometric analysis of scientific articles on asparagus was performed using VOSviewer. Its was found that the most commonly reported hazards in asparagus were pesticide residues, heavy metals and adulteration. Although the vast majority of asparagus available in the European Union (EU) comes from Europe, the majority of RASFF notifications concern products from , as well as Asian countries. Therefore, the attention of the food safety supervisory authorities of EU countries should focus on controls at the EU external border and concern imported products.

asparagus, quality, metals, pesticides, production, import, European Union