Food safety

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Food safety

Answer 1

Toxic food environment

A food environment is a collection of physical, biological and social factors that affect an individual or a group of individuals eating habits and patterns.

The term toxic food environment was coined by Kelly D. Brownell in his book, Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry to describe American culture at the end of the 20th century, one that fosters and promotes obesity and unprecedented food consumption.

Brownell is a Yale professor and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.

He uses the term “toxic” to describe unparalleled exposure to high-calorie, high-fat, heavily marketed, inexpensive, and readily accessible foods. The toxic environment is the result of ubiquity of unhealthy, processed foods, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle in which individuals spend more time watching TV and using computers than they spend exercising, the explosion of fast food restaurants, the enormous growth of portion sizes, the power of food advertising and marketing, and the junk food industry’s take-over of schools by selling unhealthy items in vending machines, cafeterias, and through school fundraisers.

Brownell and many of his colleagues attribute the nation’s obesity epidemic to the toxic environment. In 1995, the Institute of Medicine noted that the human gene pool has not undergone any real change over the past several decades, when obesity has been on the rise. Therefore, the root of the obesity crisis must lie in the environment-- the social and cultural forces that promote an over-abundance of food and eating, and a deficit of physical activity.

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Wikipedia

Answer 2

Traceability of genetically modified organisms

The traceability of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) describes a system that ensures the forwarding of the identity of a GMO from its production to its final buyer. Traceability is an essential prerequisite for the co-existence of GM and non-GM foods, and for the freedom of choice for consumers.

The traceability of GMOs is founded on two needs. First, consumers in many countries are reluctant to buy genetically modified foods, and are skeptical of the use of GM crops for animal feed. Consequently, the concept of co-existence has been developed to separate GM and non-GM supply chains, and is only possible if all purchasers along the production chain know what they are buying. Secondly, although every GMO that is approved for commercialisation must have passed a safety assessment, it may be necessary to withdraw a certain GMO from the market - for example, if new scientific evidence raises doubts about its safety.

For these purposes, after three years of debate, the OECD countries came up with an identity code for GMOs in 2002. Initially, some member countries (for example, the USA, but also Canada and Australia) were opposed to the concept. The final decision requires the assignment of a "unique identifier" to each GMO event which is authorised in one or more OECD countries. The unique identifier is a code consisting of nine letters and/or numbers. The first two or three characters indicate the company submitting the application, while the following six or five characters specify the respective transformation event. The last digit serves as a verifier. All the crop varieties derived from one transformation event will share the same unique identifier.

The unique identifier has been integrated in the and in the European Union legislation on the labelling and traceability of genetically modified organisms (Regulation (EC) No 1830/2003). Detailing the unique identifier, the regulation demands the forwarding of written documentation of the identity of a GMO at every stage of the production process. This allows a GMO to be traced even if, for example, due to intensive processing, it can no longer be detected. Using this unique identifier, information on all approved transgenic GMOs is accessible through the Biosafety Clearing-House, the information exchange platform of the Cartagena Protocol.

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Wikipedia

Answer 3

Track and trace

In distribution and logistics of many types of products, track and trace or tracking and tracing, concerns a process of determining the current and past locations (and other information) of a unique item or property.

This concept can be supported by means of reckoning and reporting of the position of vehicles and containers with the property of concern, stored, for example, in a real-time database. This approach leaves the task to compose a coherent depiction of the subsequent status reports.

Another approach is to report the arrival or departure of the object and recording the identification of the object, the location where observed, the time, and the status. This approach leaves the task to verify the reports regarding consistency and completeness. An example of this method might be the package tracking provided by shippers, such as Deutsche Post, United Parcel Service, AirRoad, or FedEx.

The international standards organization EPCglobal under GS1 has ratified the EPC network standards (esp. the EPC information services EPCIS standard) which codify the syntax and semantics for supply chain events and the secure method for selectively sharing supply chain events with trading partners. These standards for Tracking and Tracing have been used in successful deployments in many industries and there are now a wide range of products that are certified as being compatible with these standards.

In response to a growing number of recall incidents (food, pharmaceutical, toys, etc.), a wave of software, hardware, consulting and systems vendors have emerged over the last few years to offer a range of traceability solutions and tools for industry. Radio-frequency identification and barcodes are two common technology methods used to deliver traceability.

RFID is synonymous with track-and-trace solutions, and has a critical role to play in supply chains. RFID is a code-carrying technology, and can be used in place of a barcode to enable non-line of sight-reading. Deployment of RFID was earlier inhibited by cost limitations but the usage is now increasing.

Barcoding is a common and cost-effective method used to implement traceability at both the item and case-level. Variable data in a barcode or a numeric or alphanumeric code format can be applied to the packaging or label. The secure data can be used as a pointer to traceability information and can also correlate with production data such as time to market and product quality.

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Wikipedia

Answer 4

Verification and validation

Verification and validation are independent procedures that are used together for checking that a product, service, or system meets requirements and specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. These are critical components of a quality management system such as ISO 9000. The words "verification" and "validation" are sometimes preceded with "independent", indicating that the verification and validation is to be performed by a disinterested third party. "Independent verification and validation" can be abbreviated as "IV&V".

In practice, the usage of these terms varies. Sometimes they are even used interchangeably.

The PMBOK guide, a standard adopted by IEEE, defines them as follows in its 4th edition:

Verification is intended to check that a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) meets a set of design specifications. In the development phase, verification procedures involve performing special tests to model or simulate a portion, or the entirety, of a product, service or system, then performing a review or analysis of the modeling results. In the post-development phase, verification procedures involve regularly repeating tests devised specifically to ensure that the product, service, or system continues to meet the initial design requirements, specifications, and regulations as time progresses. It is a process that is used to evaluate whether a product, service, or system complies with regulations, specifications, or conditions imposed at the start of a development phase. Verification can be in development, scale-up, or production. This is often an internal process.

Validation is intended to ensure a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) results in a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) that meets the operational needs of the user. For a new development flow or verification flow, validation procedures may involve modeling either flow and using simulations to predict faults or gaps that might lead to invalid or incomplete verification or development of a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof). A set of validation requirements (as defined by the user), specifications, and regulations may then be used as a basis for qualifying a development flow or verification flow for a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof). Additional validation procedures also include those that are designed specifically to ensure that modifications made to an existing qualified development flow or verification flow will have the effect of producing a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) that meets the initial design requirements, specifications, and regulations; these validations help to keep the flow qualified. It is a process of establishing evidence that provides a high degree of assurance that a product, service, or system accomplishes its intended requirements. This often involves acceptance of fitness for purpose with end users and other product stakeholders. This is often an external process.

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Wikipedia

Answer 5

Wash versus trim

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires that any time fecal contamination is detected during meat and poultry processing, it must be removed from the carcass. Wash versus trim is shorthand used to characterize the debate over how this rule has been applied and enforced by USDA in meat and poultry plants.

For a number of years, poultry processors have been permitted to either rinse (wash) off or cut (trim) away such contamination, but beef processors have only been permitted to (trim) it with a knife. This, they argue, costs them money in lost product weight and imposes a requirement that poultry producers do not have to meet. The policy jargon for this debate is "wash versus trim". USDA, early in 1997, clarified its zero tolerance rule for poultry; a year earlier it gave beef plants permission to use a new high-temperature vacuuming method to remove fecal contamination in lieu of cutting it off.

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Wikipedia

Answer 6

Water activity

Food safety

Water activity or a_w is the partial vapor pressure of water in a substance divided by the standard state partial vapor pressure of water. In the field of food science, the standard state is most often defined as the partial vapor pressure of pure water at the same temperature. Using this particular definition, pure distilled water has a water activity of exactly one. As temperature increases, a_w typically increases, except in some products with crystalline salt or sugar.

Higher a_w substances tend to support more microorganisms. Bacteria usually require at least 0.91, and fungi at least 0.7. See also fermentation.

Water migrates from areas of high a_w to areas of low a_w. For example, if honey (a_w ≈ 0.6) is exposed to humid air (a_w ≈ 0.7), the honey absorbs water from the air. If salami (a_w ≈ 0.87) is exposed to dry air (a_w ≈ 0.5), the salami dries out, which could preserve it or spoil it.

Definition of a_w:

where p is the vapor pressure of water in the solution, and p*â‚€ is the vapor pressure of pure water at the same temperature.

Alternate definition:

where l_w is the activity coefficient of water and x_w is the mole fraction of water in the aqueous fraction.

Relationship to relative humidity: The relative humidity of air in equilibrium with a sample is called the Equilibrium Relative Humidity (ERH).

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Wikipedia