Number Of Foodborne Illnesses Research Articles

Predicting Foodborne Disease Outbreaks with Food Safety Certifications: Econometric and Machine Learning Analyses

Since the late 1990s, food safety certification has emerged as a prominent and influential regulatory mechanism in both the private and public spheres of the contemporary agri-food system. Food safety standards protect consumers from foodborne illnesses and help producers avoid the massive economic losses associated with food safety breaches. We empirically examine the relationship between foodborne disease outbreaks and certification adoption by utilizing the data on food safety certification adoption in the United States and Europe from 2015 through 2020. In our regression models, food safety certification along with select economic variables such as gross domestic product are used to explain the number of illnesses caused by foodborne disease outbreaks. For the United States at the state level, we found that certifications to SQF, PrimusGFS, BRC, or FSSC 22000 are negatively associated with the number of foodborne illnesses. For the case of Europe at the country level, certifications to ISO 22000 or FSSC 22000 are negatively associated with the number of foodborne illnesses. We then proceed to use machine learning techniques to examine how well we can use food safety certification data to predict foodborne disease outbreaks. Applying several algorithms (ordinary least squares, multinomial, decision tree, and random forest) to the U.S. data, we found that our models with food safety certification adoption can predict the number of U.S. foodborne illnesses or deaths with a relatively high degree of precision (testing accuracy at around 70% or better). Feature importance analysis allows us to inspect the relative importance of each explanatory variable (or feature) for making accurate predictions of the illness or death numbers. Through ranking the importance of explanatory variables, our study reveals that certification information could be the second most important variable (after gross domestic product) contributing to explain foodborne disease outbreaks.

A Highly Effective Bacteriophage-1252 to Control Multiple Serovars of Salmonella enterica.

Salmonella enterica (S. enterica) is the most common foodborne pathogen worldwide, leading to massive economic loss and a significant burden on the healthcare system. The primary source of S. enterica remains contaminated or undercooked poultry products. Considering the number of foodborne illnesses with multiple antibiotic resistant S. enterica, new controlling approaches are necessary. Bacteriophage (phage) therapies have emerged as a promising alternative to controlling bacterial pathogens. However, the limitation on the lysis ability of most phages is their species-specificity to the bacterium. S. enterica has various serovars, and several major serovars are involved in gastrointestinal diseases in the USA. In this study, Salmonella bacteriophage-1252 (phage-1252) was isolated and found to have the highest lytic activity against multiple serovars of S. enterica, including Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Newport, Heidelberg, Kentucky, and Gallinarum. Whole-genome sequencing analysis revealed phage-1252 is a novel phage strain that belongs to the genus Duplodnaviria in the Myoviridae family, and consists of a 244,421 bp dsDNA, with a G + C content of 48.51%. Its plaque diameters are approximately 2.5 mm to 0.5 mm on the agar plate. It inhibited Salmonella Enteritidis growth after 6 h. The growth curve showed that the latent and rise periods were approximately 40 min and 30 min, respectively. The burst size was estimated to be 56 PFU/cell. It can stabilize and maintain original activity between 4 °C and 55 °C for 1 h. These results indicate that phage-1252 is a promising candidate for controlling multiple S. enterica serovars in food production.

Freshness Assessment of Broccoli using Electronic Nose

Broccoli is one of the nutrient-rich vegetables that can easily be affected by bacteria and consumption of bacterial contaminated fresh products leads to a number of food borne illnesses. A multi-dimensional approach has been adapted to evaluate the freshness of broccoli considering four different mutually supporting techniques namely electronic nose, bacterial culture test, head sampler method with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Electronic nose output variations from 0.05 V to 1.5 V and the presence of Staphylococcus, Salmonella and Shigella in the order of Zero, 106 and 105–107 CFU mL−1 were observed for fresh, half and completely contaminated broccoli samples. GC–MS data revealed the presence of acetic acid, hexanoic acid, nonanol evolved from half and completely contaminated broccoli samples. In addition, Principle Component Analysis, Centroid-link, and Completely-link cluster analyses were used on electronic nose data in correlation with other techniques for decision making.

Time temperature indicators for monitoring environment parameters during transport and storage of perishables: A Review

Time temperature indicators are devices which integrate the exposure to temperature over time by accumulating the effect of such exposures and exhibiting a change of colour (or other physical characteristic). TTI's are commonly used in food, pharmaceutical and medical products to indicate exposure to excessive temperature abuse. TTI’s help in assure the cool chain of food products, they are expected to reduce the amount of food waste, as well as reducing the number of food borne illnesses. The mandatory regulations on pharmaceutical cold chain logistics by international and national associations like WHO are influencing the demand for TTI labels. Global time temperature indicator labels market is expected to witness rapid growth during the forecast period. This growth is expected to be primarily driven by growing concern about food wastage and its impacts on economy.

Microbiological quality of fresh vegetable salads from the Novi Sad market

Increased consumption, big production units and very efficient delivery service networks of fresh vegetables and salads caused a higher number of foodborne illnesses in the last two decades all over the world. In this study 15 fresh vegetable salads from different marketplaces in Novi Sad were tested by reference microbiological methods (detection of Salmonella spp., enumeration of Listeria monocytogenes, mesophilic aerobic bacteria, yeasts and molds, sporogenic mesophilic aerobic bacteria, sporogenic sulfite-reducing bacteria, Bacillus cereus, Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli and coagulase positive staphylococci). Salmonella spp. was found in one sample which, according to the safety criteria for such a product (if treated as ready-to-eat), was considered to be microbiologically unsafe. The number of Listeria monocytogenes in all tested samples was <100 cfu/g, which is a satisfactory result according to the safety criteria. E. coli was detected in only one sample, and the number of Enterobacteriaceae was in the range from 4.4 to 6.9 log CFU/g. The isolated Enterobacteriaceae strains were identified as Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella pneumoniae ssp. pneumoniae and Citrobacter spp.

Development and validation of the Food Disgust Scale

The function of disgust as a pathogen avoidance promoter in the food domain is not well understood. One problem is that no food-specific disgust scale is available. Thus, we developed and validated the Food Disgust Scale (FDS) through a series of five studies. The FDS is a self-report measure that enables the assessment of an individual’s emotional disposition to react with disgust to certain food-related (offensive) stimuli. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to develop eight FDS subscales that represent unique types of food disgust: animal flesh, poor hygiene, human contamination, mold, decaying fruit, fish, decaying vegetables, and living contaminants. The subscales showed good internal consistencies across three different adult samples (N between 170 and 527). Alongside the 32-item version, an 8-item composite measure was developed and tested. Validity was supported by correlational analysis between the revised version of the Disgust Scale, germ aversion, food neophobia, picky eating, and individuals’ number of food-borne illnesses in the last five years. In addition, two-week test-retest reliability was very good. Incremental validity was supported in an eating experiment (i.e., willingness to eat insect-based food). The new scale will not only help improve the understanding of how food disgust shapes people’s food behavior in a functional and dysfunctional way, but will also help enhance the understanding of consumer acceptance of new foods and food technologies.

World Health Organization Estimates of the Global and Regional Disease Burden of 22 Foodborne Bacterial, Protozoal, and Viral Diseases, 2010: A Data Synthesis.

BackgroundFoodborne diseases are important worldwide, resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality. To our knowledge, we present the first global and regional estimates of the disease burden of the most important foodborne bacterial, protozoal, and viral diseases.Methods and FindingsWe synthesized data on the number of foodborne illnesses, sequelae, deaths, and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), for all diseases with sufficient data to support global and regional estimates, by age and region. The data sources included varied by pathogen and included systematic reviews, cohort studies, surveillance studies and other burden of disease assessments. We sought relevant data circa 2010, and included sources from 1990–2012. The number of studies per pathogen ranged from as few as 5 studies for bacterial intoxications through to 494 studies for diarrheal pathogens. To estimate mortality for Mycobacterium bovis infections and morbidity and mortality for invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica infections, we excluded cases attributed to HIV infection. We excluded stillbirths in our estimates. We estimate that the 22 diseases included in our study resulted in two billion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1.5–2.9 billion) cases, over one million (95% UI 0.89–1.4 million) deaths, and 78.7 million (95% UI 65.0–97.7 million) DALYs in 2010. To estimate the burden due to contaminated food, we then applied proportions of infections that were estimated to be foodborne from a global expert elicitation. Waterborne transmission of disease was not included. We estimate that 29% (95% UI 23–36%) of cases caused by diseases in our study, or 582 million (95% UI 401–922 million), were transmitted by contaminated food, resulting in 25.2 million (95% UI 17.5–37.0 million) DALYs. Norovirus was the leading cause of foodborne illness causing 125 million (95% UI 70–251 million) cases, while Campylobacter spp. caused 96 million (95% UI 52–177 million) foodborne illnesses. Of all foodborne diseases, diarrheal and invasive infections due to non-typhoidal S. enterica infections resulted in the highest burden, causing 4.07 million (95% UI 2.49–6.27 million) DALYs. Regionally, DALYs per 100,000 population were highest in the African region followed by the South East Asian region. Considerable burden of foodborne disease is borne by children less than five years of age. Major limitations of our study include data gaps, particularly in middle- and high-mortality countries, and uncertainty around the proportion of diseases that were foodborne.ConclusionsFoodborne diseases result in a large disease burden, particularly in children. Although it is known that diarrheal diseases are a major burden in children, we have demonstrated for the first time the importance of contaminated food as a cause. There is a need to focus food safety interventions on preventing foodborne diseases, particularly in low- and middle-income settings.

Attitudes of women towards food safety

PurposeThis paper seeks to determine the attitudes of women, who are mainly in charge of preparing food at home, towards food safety.Design/methodology/approachThe research was carried out among 250 married women who were chosen from those enrolled in five Public Education Centers affiliated to the Ministry of Education. The research data were collected through a questionnaire and face‐to‐face interviews.FindingsThe mean food safety attitude score was determined to be 29.97+2.91. The food safety attitudes of women varied according to education and age. Therefore, it is important that food safety education provided is continuous in order for the effects of the education to be lasting.Originality/valueFood safety requires correct handling from production through consumption. Poor food‐handling practices in the home kitchen are thought to cause a significant number of food borne illnesses. The paper highlights the importance of education that affects food safety practices in the home.

Factors Used by Restaurant Customers to Predict Sanitation Levels

Approximately 60% of all meals consumed by Americans are prepared outside the home while a significant number of foodborne illnesses occur annually resulting in hospitalizations and death. Based on a sample of 920 restaurants, sanitation performance was assessed using readily available measures including overall hygiene, rest room conditions, and the sanitation habits of foodservice personnel. Fine-dining establishments were consistently among the top performers. However, buffet style restaurants performed surprisingly well and showed the least amount of variability across sanitation standards. French, Italian, and Japanese restaurants were generally among the top performers. Seating capacity and price were not significant predictors after adjusting for the type of establishment and ethnicity.

Impact of Irradiation on the Safety and Quality of Poultry and Meat Products: A Review

For more than 100 years research on food irradiation has demonstrated that radiation will make food safer and improve the shelf life of irradiated foods. Using the current food safety technology, we may have reached the point of diminishing returns even though recent figures from the CDC show a significant drop in the number of foodborne illnesses. However, too many people continue to get sick and die from eating contaminated food. New and under utilized technologies such as food irradiation need to be re-examined to achieve new levels of safety for the food supply. Effects of irradiation on the safety and quality of meat and poultry are discussed. Irradiation control of the principle microbial pathogens including viruses, the differences among at-risk sub-populations, factors affecting the diminished rate of improvement in food safety and published D values for irradiating raw meat and poultry are presented. Currently permitted levels of irradiation are probably not sufficient to control pathogenic viruses. Typical gram-negative spoilage organisms are very sensitive to irradiation. Their destruction leads to a significant increase in the acceptable shelf life. In addition, the destruction of these normal spoilage organisms did not provide a competitive growth advantage for irradiation injured food pathogens. Another of the main focuses of this review is a detailed compilation of the effects of most of the food additives that have been proposed to minimize the negative quality effect of irradiation. Most of the antimicrobials and antioxidants used singly or in combination produced an increased lethality of irradiation and a decrease in oxidation by-products. Combinations of dosage, temperature, dietary and direct additives, storage temperature and packaging atmosphere can produce meats that the average consumer will find indistinguishable from non-irradiated meats. A discussion of the production of unique radiological by-products is also included.

Viable Bacterial Counts on Fresh-cut Salads and Bactericidal Effect of Electrolyzed Acidic Water

The total viable bacterial count was determined with seven kinds of fresh-cut salad products for the duration of a year. Group A consisted of four different takeout salad products sold in sealed packages, while group B consisted of three different takeout salad products prepared and served at restaurants. Generally, the total viable bacterial counts of purchased salad products were strongly correlated with the ambient temperature and number of foodborne illnesses. When disinfected with electrolyzed acidic water, group A resulted in no significant bactericidal effect, while two samples in group B showed strong bactericidal effects. These results and the high initial bacterial counts in group B suggested possible cross-contamination during the serving process of the above two samples. The study indicated that successful prevention of microbial contamination requires thorough training of workers on sanitation control as well as low temperature distribution and storage.