The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods developed guidelines for conducting challenge studies on pathogen inhibition and inactivation studies in a variety of foods. The ...document is intended for use by the food industry, including food processors, food service operators, and food retailers; federal, state, and local food safety regulators; public health officials; food testing laboratories; and process authorities. The document is focused on and limited to bacterial inactivation and growth inhibition and does not make specific recommendations with respect to public health. The Committee concluded that challenge studies should be designed considering the most current advances in methodologies, current thinking on pathogens of concern, and an understanding of the product preparation, variability, and storage conditions. Studies should be completed and evaluated under the guidance of an expert microbiologist in a qualified laboratory and should include appropriate statistical design and data analyses. This document provides guidelines for choice of microorganisms for studies, inoculum preparation, inoculum level, methods of inoculation, incubation temperatures and times, sampling considerations, and interpreting test results. Examples of appropriately designed growth inhibition and inactivation studies are provided.
The food sector includes several large industries such as canned food, pasta, flour, frozen products, and beverages. Those industries transform agricultural raw materials into added-value products. ...The fruit and vegetable industry is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the world agricultural production market, which commercialize various products such as juices, jams, and dehydrated products, followed by the cereal industry products such as chocolate, beer, and vegetable oils are produced. Similarly, the root and tuber industry produces flours and starches essential for the daily diet due to their high carbohydrate content. However, the processing of these foods generates a large amount of waste several times improperly disposed of in landfills. Due to the increase in the world's population, the indiscriminate use of natural resources generates waste and food supply limitations due to the scarcity of resources, increasing hunger worldwide. The circular economy offers various tools for raising awareness for the recovery of waste, one of the best alternatives to mitigate the excessive consumption of raw materials and reduce waste. The loss and waste of food as a raw material offers bioactive compounds, enzymes, and nutrients that add value to the food cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. This paper systematically reviewed literature with different food loss and waste by-products as animal feed, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products that strongly contribute to the paradigm shift to a circular economy. Additionally, this review compiles studies related to the integral recovery of by-products from the processing of fruits, vegetables, tubers, cereals, and legumes from the food industry, with the potential in SARS-CoV-2 disease and bacterial diseases treatment.
The present commentary contains a clear and simple guide designed to identify ultra-processed foods. It responds to the growing interest in ultra-processed foods among policy makers, academic ...researchers, health professionals, journalists and consumers concerned to devise policies, investigate dietary patterns, advise people, prepare media coverage, and when buying food and checking labels in shops or at home. Ultra-processed foods are defined within the NOVA classification system, which groups foods according to the extent and purpose of industrial processing. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include the fractioning of whole foods into substances, chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of unmodified and modified food substances, frequent use of cosmetic additives and sophisticated packaging. Processes and ingredients used to manufacture ultra-processed foods are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-consume), hyper-palatable products liable to displace all other NOVA food groups, notably unprocessed or minimally processed foods. A practical way to identify an ultra-processed product is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the NOVA ultra-processed food group, which is to say, either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and hydrolysed proteins), or classes of additives designed to make the final product palatable or more appealing (such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents).
Why have food crises seemingly become more frequent in recent years, compared to the last few decades? This book examines an array of different issues and distortions that are causing food supply ...chain dysfunction in many countries, particularly for staple non-perishable foods such as grains, oilseeds, pulses and sugar. It outlines the underlying changes that are currently occurring, which will have an influence on the direction of future food supply chains, and provides some solutions to current food security problems. Based on an analysis of total regulation in the 1950s-60s through to deregulation during the 1980-90s, as well as post-deregulation, it focuses on liberal trade and deregulation as a more successful solution to creating efficiencies in food supply chains and distribution. The author highlights a common thread of either farmers using government for vested-interest intervention, or autocratic governments seeking market and supply-chain power.
The book examines the role of government after 70 years of food supply chain intervention. It discusses the role of commercial 'trade' markets and cluster industries and how these can quickly disintegrate when price distortions occur. The author studies both food importing and exporting countries and concludes that comingled commoditization of food has led to increased hoarding, corruption, and dependence on food aid. He argues that a competitive food supply chain that has minimum intervention is more likely to provide future food security. In conclusion the book emphasizes that adequate rewards, competition, and striving for supply chain efficiencies are the essences of sustainable food security.
Food is one of the most traded goods, and the conflict in Ukraine, one of the European breadbaskets, has triggered a significant additional disruption in the global food supply chains after the ...COVID-19 impact. The disruption to food output, supply chains, availability, and affordability could have a long-standing impact. As a result, the availability and supply of a wide range of food raw materials and finished food products are under threat, and global markets have seen recent increases in food prices. Furthermore, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has adversely affected food supply chains, with significant effects on production, sourcing, manufacturing, processing, logistics, and significant shifts in demand between nations reliant on imports from Ukraine. This paper aims to analyze the impacts of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on the effectiveness and responsiveness of the global food supply chains. A PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach, including grey literature, was deployed to investigate six key areas of the food supply chains that would be impacted most due to the ongoing war. Findings include solutions and strategies to mitigate supply chain impacts such as alternative food raw materials, suppliers and supply chain partners supported by technological innovations to ensure food safety and quality in warlike situations.
Over the last 10 to 15 years, increasing evidence suggests that persistence of Listeria monocytogenes in food processing plants for years or even decades is an important factor in the transmission of ...this foodborne pathogen and the root cause of a number of human listeriosis outbreaks. L. monocytogenes persistence in other food-associated environments (e.g., farms and retail establishments) may also contribute to food contamination and transmission of the pathogen to humans. Although L. monocytogenes persistence is typically identified through isolation of a specific molecular subtype from samples collected in a given environment over time, formal (statistical) criteria for identification of persistence are undefined. Environmental factors (e.g., facilities and equipment that are difficult to clean) have been identified as key contributors to persistence; however, the mechanisms are less well understood. Although some researchers have reported that persistent strains possess specific characteristics that may facilitate persistence (e.g., biofilm formation and better adaptation to stress conditions), other researchers have not found significant differences between persistent and nonpersistent strains in the phenotypic characteristics that might facilitate persistence. This review includes a discussion of our current knowledge concerning some key issues associated with the persistence of L. monocytogenes, with special focus on (i) persistence in food processing plants and other food-associated environments, (ii) persistence in the general environment, (iii) phenotypic and genetic characteristics of persistent strains, (iv) niches, and (v) public health and economic implications of persistence. Although the available data clearly indicate that L. monocytogenes persistence at various stages of the food chain contributes to contamination of finished products, continued efforts to quantitatively integrate data on L. monocytogenes persistence (e.g., meta-analysis or quantitative microbial risk assessment) will be needed to advance our understanding of persistence of this pathogen and its economic and public health impacts.
Food insecurity is a complex ‘wicked’ problem that results from a range of unstable and uncertain physical, social, cultural and economic factors that limits access to nutritious food. Globally, 800 ...million people are under-nourished, and around 2 billion are overweight/obese or have micronutrient deficiency. These populations are largely positioned in developing countries where disease burden is high and impacts health budgets and productivity. Similarly developed countries, cities and neighbourhoods are experiencing a greater emergence of vulnerable populations. This is in part explained by the change in the food production and manufacturing, the retraction in economic climates, the increase in food price, and in some regions reduced food availability and access.Vulnerable groups include but are not limited to migrant populations, Indigenous people, elderly, pregnant women, those with disability, homeless, young children and youth. Poor nutrition at significant periods of growth and development and during life impact long term health outcomes increasing non-communicable disease prevalence, health cost and reducing economic productivity.
This book challenges policy makers who oversee the rice sector in Southeast Asia to reexamine deep-rooted precepts about their responsibilities. As an essential first step, it calls on them to ...redefine food security. Fixating on national self-sufficiency has been costly and counterproductive. In its stead, coordination and cooperation can both improve rice production at home and structure expanding regional trade. To enhance regional food security through quantitative and qualitative gains in rice production, policy makers cannot solely rely on government programs. They need to also enlist private investors both as entrepreneurs and as partners who can bring capital, energy, modern technology, and experienced management into sustained efforts to reduce losses and heighten efficiency in supply chains. For such investors and participants to enter vigorously into the rice sector from which they have long held back, they will need a number of incentives, among them a confidence that the regional market for rice will evolve toward a structured, liberalized market shielded from the unilateral government interventions that have distorted it in the past and continue to do so in the present. The study's findings make it clear that current rice sector policies are not achieving their desired goals. Its examination of the 2007-08 food crises found, in fact, that government policies and panicky responses were the primary factors behind soaring (and later diminishing) rice prices. Those policies vary, but they share a common premise: food security depends, first of all, on self-sufficiency in rice. That premise has driven government intervention for decades, and unpredictable government intervention, in turn, has been a significant factor in making the rice sector too risky to attract significant private investment. The transition that this study urges will be difficult and, of necessity, slow to gain momentum. Nevertheless, it is already beginning. The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are working to liberalize trade in the region. The study is, in fact, intended to assist in implementing policy objectives outlined in the ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) framework and in the strategic plan of action on food security in the ASEAN Region 2009-2013, in which the heads of member states pledged to embrace food security as a matter of permanent and high priority.
In the last decade, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has reemerged as an analytical separation technique, especially due to the commercialization of ion mobility mass spectrometers. Its applicability ...has been extended beyond classical applications such as the determination of chemical warfare agents and nowadays it is widely used for the characterization of biomolecules (e.g., proteins, glycans, lipids, etc.) and, more recently, of small molecules (e.g., metabolites, xenobiotics, etc.). Following this trend, the interest in this technique is growing among researchers from different fields including food science. Several advantages are attributed to IMS when integrated in traditional liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) mass spectrometry (MS) workflows: (1) it improves method selectivity by providing an additional separation dimension that allows the separation of isobaric and isomeric compounds; (2) it increases method sensitivity by isolating the compounds of interest from background noise; (3) and it provides complementary information to mass spectra and retention time, the so-called collision cross section (CCS), so compounds can be identified with more confidence, either in targeted or non-targeted approaches. In this context, the number of applications focused on food analysis has increased exponentially in the last few years. This review provides an overview of the current status of IMS technology and its applicability in different areas of food analysis (i.e., food composition, process control, authentication, adulteration and safety).
Given evident multiple threats to food systems and supplies, food security, human health and welfare, the living and physical world and the biosphere, the years 2016–2025 are now designated by the UN ...as the Decade of Nutrition, in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. For these initiatives to succeed, it is necessary to know which foods contribute to health and well-being, and which are unhealthy. The present commentary outlines the NOVA system of food classification based on the nature, extent and purpose of food processing. Evidence that NOVA effectively addresses the quality of diets and their impact on all forms of malnutrition, and also the sustainability of food systems, has now accumulated in a number of countries, as shown here. A singular feature of NOVA is its identification of ultra-processed food and drink products. These are not modified foods, but formulations mostly of cheap industrial sources of dietary energy and nutrients plus additives, using a series of processes (hence ‘ultra-processed’). All together, they are energy-dense, high in unhealthy types of fat, refined starches, free sugars and salt, and poor sources of protein, dietary fibre and micronutrients. Ultra-processed products are made to be hyper-palatable and attractive, with long shelf-life, and able to be consumed anywhere, any time. Their formulation, presentation and marketing often promote overconsumption. Studies based on NOVA show that ultra-processed products now dominate the food supplies of various high-income countries and are increasingly pervasive in lower-middle- and upper-middle-income countries. The evidence so far shows that displacement of minimally processed foods and freshly prepared dishes and meals by ultra-processed products is associated with unhealthy dietary nutrient profiles and several diet-related non-communicable diseases. Ultra-processed products are also troublesome from social, cultural, economic, political and environmental points of view. We conclude that the ever-increasing production and consumption of these products is a world crisis, to be confronted, checked and reversed as part of the work of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and its Decade of Nutrition.
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