The Growing Concern on Food Safety

Have you ever wondered how big of a problem foodborne illness is on the federal level in the United States? Foodborne illness is a big problem on the public health. Foodborne illnesses are infections caused by beverages or foods that contain harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites and/or chemicals. Foods can also be contaminated with bacteria during the food preparation you do at home or the preparation done at a restaurant. If the food cooks or food preparers do not carefully wash their hands, kitchen tools, cutting boards, and other kitchen surfaces that come into contact with raw foods, cross contamination can occur which is the spread of bacteria from contaminated foods to uncontaminated foods. If hot food is not kept hot enough or cold food is not kept cold enough, bacteria can multiply. Bacteria multiplies very quickly when the temperature of food is between 40 and 140 degrees. Cold food should be kept below 40 degrees and hot food should be kept above 140 degrees. Bacteria multiplies slower when food is refrigerated. Freezing food can also slow or even stop the spread of bacteria. But once food is brought to room temperature once again the bacteria that is refrigerated or frozen becomes active once again. Thoroughly cooking foods can also kill bacterias that cause foodborne illnesses. The common symptoms of foodborne illnesses are vomiting, diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, and/or the chills. The Federal government has estimated that there is about 48 million cases of

The purpose of this study is to examine what are processed foods? What are the associated problems? Also, to determine if processed

With this increase in the productivity of farmers, came a proliferation of food processing industries and fast food restaurants. These food processing industries and restaurants capitalized on the abundant, overly cheap commodity crops to their advantage; to make profit, and to the disadvantage of poor Americans. During processing of these commodity crops, the natural nutrients that give these foods their natural flavors are destroyed. To replace these, food additives and flavorings are added to restore their taste and prolong their shelf life. Often these chemicals contain some harmful elements that affect the way our bodies use food. These highly processed foods, dense in calories,

Foodborne illness is one of the more common illnesses that affects every 1 in 6 Americans each year according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) (cdc.gov). Of those 48 million people, about 128,00 are hospitalized while 3,000 are left dead (cdc.gov). Foods such as: fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry, and shellfish, are the number one causers of foodborne illness. Produce accounted for the highest affecting food group with leafy greens causing more than 46% by the norovirus (https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-1998-2008.html). Poultry accounted for the most deaths with findings of Salmonella and Listeria as the two main bacteria causing agents.

Nina Redman talks about the international food safety and how it works against the foodborne diseases. The world Health Organization (WHO) plays a major rule on food safety by publicizing the safety related programs and workshops. Beside bacteria and viruses, Nina also wrote about some other food safety threats such as hormones in milk, overuse of antibiotics in farm animals, genetically engineered plants etc. Risk assessment is a tool that scientists use to reduce the risk of these threats. The foodborne illness/disease most likely happens from the bacteria. DNA “fingerprinting” is one of the best tool that scientists have invented to investigate the foodborne illness.

As a society knowledge in the nutritional capacity of our food is becoming an increasing factor. The world has begun to place more importance on producing and manufacturing quality food with nutritional ingredients. Research has begun to reveal certain components of food

This report includes role of NDE and examples of application of NDE in food industry. The purpose of NDE in the food industry is to analyze food quality and safety to ensure a happy and health customer, and in turn, increase profitability of the producer. Food quality is a sensory property of food including appearance, taste, nutritional value (nutrient content), health benefit (functional ingredient) or safety (physical, chemical, biological). Certain basic factors are commonly used to characterize quality: appearance, texture, taste, aroma, color. Many quality factors of food are highly relative to physical properties of the products, it’s necessary to develop non-destructive methods for evaluating quality based on

Recently there has been a rise in food-borne illnesses in both homes and restaurant settings. It is important that everyone knows the appropriate ways to prevent such conditions. Preventing food-borne illnesses like salmonella, norovirus, and staphylococcus aureus are not as difficult as one might think, but it is essential that appropriate precautions are taken to minimize the risks of infection. Although some people only experience gastrointestinal distress from food-borne illnesses, others (particularly children and the elderly) can experience more serious complications.

Food is preserved to prevent spoiling and prevent alterations in their taste or appearance. Anti-microbial substances are used to inhibit or delay the growth of bacteria yeast and moulds (Food Today 2004).

Food samples used in this experiment is Nasi Lemak. Total viable count of the sample is 5.4×104 cfu/g, presumptive E. coli is 7.2×102 cfu/g while presumptive S. aureus is 5.5×103 cfu/g. Based on microbiological guidelines for food, range of acceptable level of viable count is 103 to 105 (Chua et al., 2014). This shows that the food is still safe to be consumed. Acceptable range of microbiological level of E. coli is 102 while marginal range of microbiological level of S. aureus is 102-103 (FSANZ, 2001).

Food industries not only consider consumer attitude, food type, safety, domestic and international regulatory requirements in its quality practices, they also have to deal with human health and give priorities to the organoleptic and nutritional value. These two components (organoleptic and nutritional value) are very sensitive to any microbial or autocatalytic change. In the food industry a contaminated product is discarded, emphasis is on personnel hygiene and sanitation. Serious consideration is given to contamination that may spoil the food and or lead to foodborne

Many elements in American society today are easily accessible, including the food we consume. The supermarket is the most common method Americans obtains their produce and other food related products. With the abundant amount of technological advancements in recent years, the production and cultivation of goods have been greatly affected, which are seen in the supermarkets today. Food items that are not in season could still be found on the shelves year-round. According to Michael Pollan, there seems to be “no seasons in the American supermarket” (Food Inc.).

Food is an essential constituent in human life. Nevertheless, some foods can be detrimental to a person’s organism by causing life-threatening diseases. For that reason, food safety comes into play. Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling,

The author strongly argues that the ability of pathogenic bacteria to grow or die under certain environmental conditions is of great importance in risk assessment. It essentially allows us to see which hazards might occur; what is the likelihood; what is the severity, in biological terms if it does occur. To predict impact and te exposure dose, microbial growth under a variety of conditions and stressors much be evaluated. He believes modeling the behavior of microorganisms in the growth/no growth region is now seen as an important component of predictive microbiology. As he comes back to throughout the chapter, bacterial pathogens are exposed to a host of stresses during their lifetime, in particular during food processing. Predictive microbial modeling, he argues, enables estimates to be made of microbial growth under varying time, temperature and intrinsic conditions or stressors. He talks again about the importance of predictive modeling as a way to quantify the combined effect of various hurdles on

Food preservatives are described as natural means or man-made chemicals that are used in foods to prevent them from spoiling. A subgroup of preservatives are food additives, which differ from preservatives in the way that additives are not only used to lengthen the life of food, but also to improve taste and appearance. The ultimate goal of preservatives and additives are to improve the quality and lifespan of food by slowing down the decomposition process using chemicals or natural methods, such as salt and dehydration.