|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
Low water activity (aw) and dried foods such as dried dairy and
meat products, grain-based and dried ready-to-eat cereal products,
powdered infant formula, peanut and nut pastes, as well as flours
and meals have increasingly been associated with product recalls
and foodborne outbreaks due to contamination by pathogens such as
Salmonella spp. and enterohemorrhagic E. coli. In particular,
recent foodborne outbreaks and product recalls related to
Salmonella-contaminated spices have raised the level of public
health concern for spices as agents of foodborne illnesses.
Presently, most spices are grown outside the U.S., mainly in 8
countries: India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, Peru, Madagascar,
Mexico and Vietnam. Many of these countries are under-developed and
spices are harvested and stored with little heed to sanitation. The
FDA has regulatory oversight of spices in the United States;
however, the agency's control is largely limited to enforcing
regulatory compliance through sampling and testing only after
imported foodstuffs have crossed the U.S. border. Unfortunately,
statistical sampling plans are inefficient tools for ensuring total
food safety. As a result, the development and use of
decontamination treatments is key. This book provides an
understanding of the microbial challenges to the safety of low aw
foods, and a historic backdrop to the paradigm shift now
highlighting low aw foods as vehicles for foodborne pathogens.
Up-to-date facts and figures of foodborne illness outbreaks and
product recalls are included. Special attention is given to the
uncanny ability of Salmonella to persist under dry conditions in
food processing plants and foods. A section is dedicated
specifically to processing plant investigations, providing
practical approaches to determining sources of persistent bacterial
strains in the industrial food processing environment. Readers are
guided through dry cleaning, wet cleaning and alternatives to
processing plant hygiene and sanitation. Separate chapters are
devoted to low aw food commodities of interest including spices,
dried dairy-based products, low aw meat products, dried
ready-to-eat cereal products, powdered infant formula, nuts and nut
pastes, flours and meals, chocolate and confectionary, dried teas
and herbs, and pet foods. The book provides regulatory testing
guidelines and recommendations as well as guidance through
methodological and sampling challenges to testing spices and low aw
foods for the presence of foodborne pathogens. Chapters also
address decontamination processes for low aw foods, including heat,
steam, irradiation, microwave, and alternative energy-based
treatments.
Low water activity (aw) and dried foods such as dried dairy and
meat products, grain-based and dried ready-to-eat cereal products,
powdered infant formula, peanut and nut pastes, as well as flours
and meals have increasingly been associated with product recalls
and foodborne outbreaks due to contamination by pathogens such as
Salmonella spp. and enterohemorrhagic E. coli. In particular,
recent foodborne outbreaks and product recalls related to
Salmonella-contaminated spices have raised the level of public
health concern for spices as agents of foodborne illnesses.
Presently, most spices are grown outside the U.S., mainly in 8
countries: India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, Peru, Madagascar,
Mexico and Vietnam. Many of these countries are under-developed and
spices are harvested and stored with little heed to sanitation. The
FDA has regulatory oversight of spices in the United States;
however, the agency's control is largely limited to enforcing
regulatory compliance through sampling and testing only after
imported foodstuffs have crossed the U.S. border. Unfortunately,
statistical sampling plans are inefficient tools for ensuring total
food safety. As a result, the development and use of
decontamination treatments is key. This book provides an
understanding of the microbial challenges to the safety of low aw
foods, and a historic backdrop to the paradigm shift now
highlighting low aw foods as vehicles for foodborne pathogens.
Up-to-date facts and figures of foodborne illness outbreaks and
product recalls are included. Special attention is given to the
uncanny ability of Salmonella to persist under dry conditions in
food processing plants and foods. A section is dedicated
specifically to processing plant investigations, providing
practical approaches to determining sources of persistent bacterial
strains in the industrial food processing environment. Readers are
guided through dry cleaning, wet cleaning and alternatives to
processing plant hygiene and sanitation. Separate chapters are
devoted to low aw food commodities of interest including spices,
dried dairy-based products, low aw meat products, dried
ready-to-eat cereal products, powdered infant formula, nuts and nut
pastes, flours and meals, chocolate and confectionary, dried teas
and herbs, and pet foods. The book provides regulatory testing
guidelines and recommendations as well as guidance through
methodological and sampling challenges to testing spices and low aw
foods for the presence of foodborne pathogens. Chapters also
address decontamination processes for low aw foods, including heat,
steam, irradiation, microwave, and alternative energy-based
treatments.
Foodborne illnesses continue to be a major public health concern.
All members of a particular bacterial genera (e.g., Salmonella,
Campylobacter) or species (e.g., Listeria monocytogenes,
Cronobacter sakazakii) are often treated by public health and
regulatory agencies as being equally pathogenic; however, this is
not necessarily true and is an overly conservative approach to
ensuring the safety of foods. Even within species, virulence
factors vary to the point that some isolates may be highly
virulent, whereas others may rarely, if ever, cause disease in
humans. Hence, many food safety scientists have concluded that a
more appropriate characterization of bacterial isolates for public
health purposes could be by virotyping, i.e., typing
food-associated bacteria on the basis of their virulence factors.
The book is divided into two sections. Section I, "Foodborne
Pathogens and Virulence Factors," hones in on specific virulence
factors of foodborne pathogens and the role they play in regulatory
requirements, recalls, and foodborne illness. The oft-held paradigm
that all pathogenic strains are equally virulent is untrue. Thus,
we will examine variability in virulence between strains such as
Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Cronobacter, etc. This section
also examines known factors capable of inducing greater virulence
in foodborne pathogens. Section II, "Foodborne Pathogens, Host
Susceptibility, and Infectious Dose" , covers the ability of a
pathogen to invade a human host based on numerous extraneous
factors relative to the host and the environment. Some of these
factors include host age, immune status, genetic makeup, infectious
dose, food composition and probiotics. Readers of this book will
come away with a better understanding of foodborne bacterial
pathogen virulence factors and pathogenicity, and host factors that
predict the severity of disease in humans.
|
|