Food producers all over the world bear a major social responsibility: to care for the health of consumers. Millions of people get sick every year from eating contaminated food, and – according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – producers must play an essential role in preventing this scourge.
For instance, in 2011, Europe came under alert due to an outbreak of the disease known as “E. Coli”, an abbreviation of its full name, “Escherichia Coli.” This microorganism lives in human and animal intestines and generally causes no problems.
However, Medline Plus explains that “some types of E. Coli can make you sick and cause diarrhea. One type causes travelers' diarrhea. The worst type of E. coli causes bloody diarrhea and kidney failure, which can be fatal. This is most likely to occur in children and in adults with weak immune systems.”
In fact, according to figures provided by the WHO, a strain of the disease triggers Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes the death of 380,000 children under five and 200 million episodes of diarrhea in children and adults each year.
According to FAO, “a wide range of foods may be a vehicle for pathogenic E. coli, contaminated during growth and harvest (horticulture products), collection (milk), or slaughter (meat). Further contamination can occur during post-harvest handling, transport, processing and unhygienic food handling during preparation.”
Factors contributing to the persistence of E. coli in food systems include inadequate control of processing parameters (e.g. cooking temperature, pH value, water activity and storage at warm temperatures for sufficient time to allow growth). FAO further provides several examples of food that can be contaminated: raw or under-processed meat (fermented meat, undercooked ground beef, etc.), unpasteurized dairy products (cheese, milk, etc.), unpasteurized fruit juices and raw vegetables (sprouts, seeds, lettuce, spinach, cantaloupe, mushrooms, etc.).
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