Chapter 19

Food Safety

True/False

1. Freezing foods kills bacteria

2. As long as the expiration date hasn’t passed, packaged food is always safe to eat

3. You can wash pesticides off produce with plain water

Answers

1. False. Freezing foods doesn’t kill bacteria, but puts them at a dormant state. Once the food is thawed, bacteria growth resume

2. False. Package date refers to food quality not safety

3. True. A good scrub with cold running water and a vegetable brush can remove pesticide residue and many germs from the produce

Food SafetyWhat Is Food Safety and Why Is It Important? • Food safety practices and guidelines established to

ensure the safety of foods from farm to table• U.S. enjoys one of safest food supplies in world

– CDC estimate 76 Millions people experience some type of foodborne illness annually

• About 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,200 deaths

– Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book The Jungle led to Meat Inspection Act

• Food safety precautions led to positive health effects in the U.S.

Food Safety

What Causes Foodborne Illness and How Can It Make You Sick?

• Foodborne illnesses are often caused by:– Pathogens (virus and bacteria).

• Can be spread by fecal-to-oral transmission• Salmonella is the most common pathogen

– Parasites: microscopic organisms that take nourishment from hosts

– Chemical agents such as pesticides and toxins in foods we eat also cause illness.

Food Safety

High Risk population– Older adults– young children– pregnant women– those with compromised immune systems

What Can You Do to Prevent Foodborne Illness?

Practice “4 Cs” of food safety:

1.Clean your hands and produce.– Hands: hot soapy water with agitation for at

least twenty seconds– Sanitize cutting boards, sponges– Wash fruits and vegetables under cold

running water, scrub firm skins with vegetable brush

What Can You Do to Prevent Foodborne Illness?

2. Combat cross-contamination.– Keep raw meat, poultry, fish separate from

other foods during preparation, storage, and transport

3. Cook foods thoroughly.– Color not reliable indicator: measure internal

temperature

What Can You Do to Prevent Foodborne Illness?

4. Chill foods at a low enough temperature.– Bacteria multiply rapidly between 40o – 140o F

• Keep hot foods hot: above 140o F • Keep cold foods below 40o F: perishables shouldn’t

be left more than two hours• Keep leftovers no more than four days in refrigerator,

raw meats two days

– Freezer temperature: at or below 0o F

• E-Coli Video

• Find out more info at www.fightbac.org

Foodborne IllnessFood Safety in the Kitchen• Safe Handling of Meats and Poultry

– Cook meat thoroughly and use a thermometer. – Read labeling instructions.– Recommended safe temperatures

• Whole poultry: 180˚ F• Poultry breast and well-done meats: 170˚ F• Stuffing, ground poultry, and reheated leftovers: 165˚ F• Medium-done meats, raw eggs, egg dishes, pork, and ground

meat: 160 ˚F• Medium-rare meats, roasts, veal, and lamb: 145˚ F• Foods should not be kept between 40˚ F and 140˚ F for more

than 2 hours• Refrigerator temperature: 40˚ F• Freezer temperature: 0˚ F

The Do’s and Don’ts of Cross-Contamination

Fig. 19-4, p. 669

Foodborne Illness

• Occasionally unsafe– Soft cheeses– Salad bar items– Unwashed berries and

grapes– Sandwiches– Hamburgers

• Rarely unsafe– Peeled fruit– High-sugar foods– Steaming-hot foods

Advances in Food Safety

• Pasteurization since early 1900s

• Irradiation – (cold pasteurization) use of low dose irradiation protects consumers from foodborne illnesses. Minimal vitamin is lost.– Control mold in grains– Sterilizing spices and teas for storage at room

temperature– Control insects– Extend shelf life of produce– Destroy harmful bacteria in fresh and frozen beef,

poultry, lamb and pork

This international symbol, called the radura, indentifies retail foods that have been irradiated. The words “Treated by irradiation” or “Treated with irradiation” must accompany the symbol. The irradiation label is not required on commercially prepared foods that contain irradiated ingredients, such as spices.

Product Dating

Closed Food Product Dating

Open Food Product Dating

Who Protects Your Food and How Do They Do It?

Agency:

USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

Responsible for:

Safe and accurately labeled meat, poultry, eggs

Safety of all other foods

Protecting you and environment from harmful pesticides

Protecting against plant and animal pests and disease

Natural Toxicants in Foods• Toxins occur naturally to help plant or

animal fend off predators or capture food

• Natural foods may contain harmful toxins

• Cooking won’t destroy toxins– Poisonous mushrooms– Eating in large quantity, cabbage, turnips, mustard

greens, kale, broccoli, radishes contain goitrogens that may enlarge the thyroid gland

– Lima beans contain cyanogens – produce cyanide poisoning when activated by certain plant enzyme

– Potatoes contain solanine and can be toxic when consumed in large quantity

Natural Toxicants in Foods

• Marine toxins:– Spoiled finfish can cause scombrotoxic

(histamine) fish poisoning.

– Large reef fish can bioaccumulate ciguatoxins produced by dinoflagellates.

– Shell fish can be contaminated by neurotoxins produced by dinoflagellates, causing paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Bioaccumulation of Toxins

Chemical Agents

Pesticides widely used in agriculture

• Pesticides help promote abundant crop production.

• Types of pests include insects, weeds, microorganisms, fungi (mold), and rodents

• Organophosphates affect nervous systems of pests, are being re-reviewed by EPA to ensure safety

Chemical Agents

• Biopesticides (naturally-derived) typically less toxic than synthetic chemical pesticides– Examples: insect sex pheromones interfere

with mating of pests; baking soda can inhibit growth of fungi

The risks of pesticides:– Synthetic pesticides can cause harm to animals,

humans, environment depending on level of toxicity and how much consumed

– Pesticide use is heavily regulated in the U.S.

Chemical Agents

Regulating pesticides: who’s watching the crops?– EPA evaluates all food pesticides using human

health risk assessment: hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterization

Minimize pesticides in your diet.– Washing fruits and vegetables with clean,

running water and vegetable brush removes up to 81% of pesticide residue

Reducing Pesticides In Your Foods

What Is Organic and How Do You Find Organic Foods?

• Organic farming: growing crops without the use of some synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, bioengineering or irradiation– Organic meat, poultry, eggs, dairy foods are free

of antibiotics and growth hormone– USDA: National Organic Standards

• USDA organic certification: must contain at least 95% organic ingredients

• May not be free of all pesticides• USDA hasn’t found organic foods to be safer or

nutritionally superior to conventional foods.

The USDA Organic Seal

Various Levels of Organic

Table 14.6

Food Additives

• Additives are substances not normally eaten as foods, but added to food either intentionally or accidentally– Most are preservatives– Nitrite used in curing meat prevent poisoning

from toxin– Nutrient additives enhance nutrient quality– Regulated by FDA: Federal Food, Drug and

Cosmetic Act and 1958, Food Additives Amendment authorized FDA to regulate food and food ingredients and additives

Food Additives

• FDA require additives to be:

• Effective

• Detectable and measurable in the final product

• Safe when consume in large doses• Exemptions: prior-sanctioned status (such as nitrates to

preserve meats) and GRAS (generally recognized as safe) substances, such as salt, sugar, spices, vitamins, etc.

Food Additives

• Nutrient Additives– Common Nutrient Additives

• Thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, folate, and iron in grain products

• Iodine in salt• Vitamins A and D in milk• Vitamin C and calcium in fruit drinks

• Vitamin B12 in vegetarian foods

• Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

• Sulfites

What is Genetic Engineering

• Use of biotechnology to modify the genetic material of living cells so they will produce new substances or perform new functions.

• Use to increase crop yields

• A single gene can be transferred from the same or different species to produce one with desired characteristics.– Genetically modified or genetically engineer

Why GE Foods• Extended shelf life

– Tomatoes

• Improved nutrient composition– Biofortification to produce more nutrients

• Efficient food processing

• Efficient drug delivery– Bananas and potatoes are used to make

hepatitis vaccines– Tobacco leaves to make AIDs drugs

Why GE?

• Genetically assisted agriculture– Increase crop yields– Extend growing seasons– ½ of the soybean crop in the US have been

Ge’d to withstand potent herbicide– Corn broccoli and potatoes receive a gene

that toxic to caterpillars to protect the crop

Problem with GE Foods

• Food industry driven by profit, not food safety

• Unpredictable outcome

• Disruption of natural ecosystems

• Introduction of disease

• Introduction of allergens and toxins

• Creation of biological weapons

• Ethical dilemmas

GE Foods and the FDA

• GE foods are not substantially different from others and therefore does not require:– Special testing, – Regulations, or – Labeling

• GE foods differ from conventional foods by only one or two genes

De-coding the Numbers on the produce

• For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU code on the sticker consists of four numbers. (4011)

• Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9. (94011)

• Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8. (84011)

• Processed foods do not have PLU codes

Extra Credit

10 points extra credit:• Complete worksheet for chapter

19, posted on the course website. Note the worksheet has two parts, you must complete part 1 and two to get full credit.