Food safety regulators face a daunting task: crafting food safety performance standards and systems that continue in the tradition of using the best available science to protect the health of the American public, while working within an increasingly antiquated and fragmented regulatory framework. Current food safety standards have been set over a period of years and under diverse circumstances, based on a host of scientific, legal, and practical constraints. Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food lays the groundwork for creating new regulations that are consistent, reliable, and ensure the best protection for the health of American consumers. This book addresses the biggest concerns in food safetyâ€"including microbial disease surveillance plans, tools for establishing food safety criteria, and issues specific to meat, dairy, poultry, seafood, and produce. It provides a candid analysis of the problems with the current system, and outlines the major components of the task at hand: creating workable, streamlined food safety standards and practices.

The safety and quality of the U.S. food supply depend on a total program of careful microbiological control. Microbiological criteria, which establish acceptable levels of microorganisms in foods and food ingredients, are an essential part of such a program. Says ASM News, "This book provides not only an informed and objective evaluation of microbiological criteria for a wide variety of foods and specific pathogens and the committee's recommendations regarding those criteria, but it also provides an excellent reference book on the applied microbiological aspects of food quality assurance."

Statistical Aspects of the Microbiological Examination of Foods, Third Edition, updates some important statistical procedures following intensive collaborative work by many experts in microbiology and statistics, and corrects typographic and other errors present in the previous edition. Following a brief introduction to the subject, basic statistical concepts and procedures are described including both theoretical and actual frequency distributions that are associated with the occurrence of microorganisms in foods. This leads into a discussion of the methods for examination of foods and the sources of statistical and practical errors associated with the methods. Such errors are important in understanding the principles of measurement uncertainty as applied to microbiological data and the approaches to determination of uncertainty. The ways in which the concept of statistical process control developed many years ago to improve commercial manufacturing processes can be applied to microbiological examination in the laboratory. This is important in ensuring that laboratory results reflect, as precisely as possible, the microbiological status of manufactured products through the concept and practice of laboratory accreditation and proficiency testing. The use of properly validated standard methods of testing and the verification of 'in house' methods against internationally validated methods is of increasing importance in ensuring that laboratory results are meaningful in relation to development of and compliance with established microbiological criteria for foods. The final chapter of the book reviews the uses of such criteria in relation to the development of and compliance with food safety objectives. Throughout the book the theoretical concepts are illustrated in worked examples using real data obtained in the examination of foods and in research studies concerned with food safety. - Includes additional figures and tables together with many worked examples to illustrate the use of specific procedures in the analysis of data obtained in the microbiological examination of foods - Offers completely updated chapters and six new chapters - Brings the reader up to date and allows easy access to individual topics in one place - Corrects typographic and other errors present in the previous edition

The RACCP (hazard analysis critical control point) concept for food products was an outgrowth of the US space program with the demand for a safe food supply for manned space flights by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The original work was carried out by the Pillsbury Company under the direction of Roward E. Bauman, who as the author of chapter 1 describes the evolution of the RACCP system and its adaptation to foods. The second chapter discusses the adoption of RACCP principles and explains how they fit into the USDA and FDA meat, poultry and seafood inspection systems. The next chapter discusses how RACCP principles can be extended to production of meat, poultry and seafoods, a most important area involved in producing a safe food supply. Chapter 4 deals with the use of RACCP in controlling hazards encountered in slaughtering and distribution of fresh meat and poultry, while chapter 5 discusses the problem - both spoilage and hazards - involved in processing and distribution of meat, poultry and seafood products. Chapter 6 covers the entire area of fish and seafoods, including both fresh and processed products from the standpoints of spoilage and hazards.

The guidelines aim to provide a practical framework and approach for undertaking exposure assessment of microbiological hazards (bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa and microbial toxins) in foods in the context of a risk assessment or as a stand-alone process.

Numerous works on non-destructive testing of food quality have been reported in the literature. Techniques such as Near InfraRed (NIR) spectroscopy, color and visual spectroscopy, electronic nose and tongue, computer vision (image analysis), ultrasound, x-ray, CT and magnetic resonance imaging are some of the most applied for that purpose and are described in this book. Aspects such as theory/basics of the techniques, practical applications (sampling, experimentation, data analysis) for evaluation of quality attributes of food and some recent works reported in literature are presented and discussed. This book is particularly interesting for new researchers in food quality and serves as an updated state-of-the-art report for those already familiar with the field.

This book covers application of food microbiology principles into food preservation and processing. Main aspects of the food preservation techniques, alternative food preservation techniques, role of microorganisms in food processing and their positive and negative features are covered. Features subjects on mechanism of antimicrobial action of heat, thermal process, mechanisms for microbial control by low temperature, mechanism of food preservation, control of microorganisms and mycotoxin formation by reducing water activity, food preservation by additives and biocontrol, food preservation by modified atmosphere, alternative food processing techniques, and traditional fermented products processing. The book is designed for students in food engineering, health science, food science, agricultural engineering, food technology, nutrition and dietetic, biological sciences and biotechnology fields. It will also be valuable to researchers, teachers and practising food microbiologists as well as anyone interested in different branches of food.

This Brief describes in three concise chapters one of the newest ‘hot topics’ under EU Food Law and Policy: the new Regulation (EU) No 2015/2283 from the European Parliament and by the Council, November 25, 2015, on novel foods, applicable from January 2018. In this work, the Authors discuss the long-time criticized EU Regulation on novel foods ((EC) No 258/1997) and how it has been significantly altered by the adoption of the new regulation. In the first chapter, the Authors provide a comprehensive analysis of the genesis of the new Regulation, its rationale and the policy’s goals. In particular, they describe what food business operators shall do in order to get a new product allowed on the EU market, providing updated information on the regulatory developments from the European Food Safety Authority in nanofoods, cloned animals and insect foods. The role of the European Food Safety Authority is also discussed. The second Chapter summarizes the current toxicological studies used to evaluate novel foods safety, which are an extremely important pillar when speaking of food safety and commercial introduction of new products. Finally, the third Chapter discusses the ‘history of safe use’ approach to the problem of novel foods, and factors such as consumption period analysis, preparation advices and processes, intake levels, nutritional composition, and results of animal studies. Food lawyers, professionals and auditors working in the area of official inspections, quality assurance, food traceability, and international regulation, both in academia and industry, will find this Brief an important account.