Ingredients & related issues (Overview)

Dough
1) Flour- Bacillus cereus
2) Water- Coliform
3) Olive oil- nil (Chemical: Rancidity)
4) Quick rise yeast
5) Salt- nil (physical)

Pizza sauce
6) Garlic- Salmonella Virchow
7) Spices (Basil,oregano)- Salmonella
8) Tomato paste- Salmonella n *Cryptosporidium n *Listeria monocytogenes
9) Sugar- nil (physical)

Toppings
10) Pepperoni- yeast & mold, Ecoli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes
11) Crabstick- staphylococcus aureus
12) Parmesan/ Mozerella cheese- Listeria monocytogenes

What is food safety?

Food is essentially a part of human to sustain life. In order to provide healthy and wholesome food to consumers, food safety is of a key concern during the receiving, preparation and transportation of food.

Food safety is:

1) Protecting the food supply from microbial, chemical (ie rancidity, browning) and physical (ie drying out, infestation) hazards or contamination that may occur during all stages of food production and handling-growing, harvesting, processing, transporting, preparing, distributing and storing. The goal of food safety monitoring is to keep food wholesome.

Quoted from: Rhode island food safety education. (2000). Glossary. Retrieved April 2, 2007 from www.uri.edu/ce/ceec/food/factsheets/glossary.html

2) Food safety is a scientific discipline describing the handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent Foodborne illness.

Quoted from: Wikipedia. (2007). Food safety. Retrieved April 2, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety

Since food safety is of high importance in the food and beverage industry, goverment bodies; national and internationl comes into the picture. These organisations are the legal bodies that controls and monitors the safety of food by inspection, quality control and checks to ensure that the food reaching the consumers meets the safety standards and are wholesome. These regulating legal bodies are the World Health Organisation (WHO) at the international level and Food and Drug Adminstration-US (FDA), Agri-food and Vetinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) at the national level. Singapore's very own AVA set standards for the food imported from other countries and conduct checks on the food to protect the people from food related illness.

Therefore, despite the fact that people are constantly looking for alternative ways to produce cheap and good food and no doubt technology is improving as well and people are also into producing food that is healthy, organic and has the ability to prolong life.

but we should stop to ponder about the safety of this foods.


Yes, they have have certain benefits that we are looking for and on top of it, it may be cheap BUT have you considered the possiblity that the food may actually be unsafe?


The most important factor that a person working in food industry should have is the integrity that he/she will only produce food that is safe for human consumption, for the safety of produced food should come before anything else.


Food safety is important because consuming unsafe food can cause food borne illness and may even result in death!


What's more important than life?!


So, now are you going to just look at the price of the food and its nutritional value? or is food safety now a major concern for you as well?

intro to_fd safety_avian flu

-What is foOd SafEty?

1) Protecting the food supply from microbial, chemical (ie rancidity, browning) and physical (ie drying out, infestation) hazards or contamination that may occur during all stages of food production and handling-growing, harvesting, processing, transporting, preparing, distributing and storing. The goal of food safety monitoring is to keep food wholesome.


Rhode island food safety education. (2000). Glossary. Retrieved April 2, 2007 from www.uri.edu/ce/ceec/food/factsheets/glossary.html

2) Food safety is a scientific discipline describing the handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent Foodborne illness.


Wikipedia. (2007). Food safety. Retrieved April 2, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety


-What is AvIan fLu?

Avian refers to birds and flu refers to influenza. Avian flu is casued by influenza virus type A and of which two affects birds, they are the H5 and H7 subtypes 1.
These virus causes serious diseases and may be fatal.


-What are the SymPtOms of human flu?

Human flu symptoms are:

fever
cough
sore throat
muscle aches
conjunctivitis
Cases of bird flu are more likely to cause breathing problems and pneumonia, and can be fatal.


BUPA. (2005). Health news - Avian flu (bird flu). Retrieved on April 2, 2007 from http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/health_news/250205avianflu.html


-PrEveNtIve mEasUreS for avian flu

A new system has been developed to kill the virus that causes avain influenza by pasteurising raw eggs to destroy the dangerous Salmonella enteritidis bacteria.

-cOnseQueNces for consuming eggs contaminated with Salmonella

Salmonella can cause potentially lethal diarrhoea


South Africa. (2005). Killing salmonella, avian flu in eggs. Retrieved on April 2, 2007 from http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/health/update/eggs-171105.htm


-mOrE abt avian flu...

It has been discovered that by cooking poultry at or above 70°Celsius throughout the product, this is to ensure that no meat remains raw and red, and is a safe measure to kill the H5N1 virus in areas with outbreaks in poultry. This ensures that there is no active virus remaining if the live bird has been infected and has mistakenly entered the food chain. To date, there is no epidemiological evidence that people have become infected after eating contaminated poultry meat that has been properly cooked.

as for EgGs..

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus can only be found on the surface of eggs laid by infected birds. Alnd usually sick birds will normally stop producing eggs, and eggs laid in the early phase of the disease could contain viruses in the egg-white and yolk as well as on the surface of the shell.

Proper cooking inactivates the virus present inside the eggs. Pasteurization used by industry for liquid egg products is also effective in inactivating the virus.

Eggs from areas with outbreaks in poultry should be thoroughly cooked and not be consumed raw or partially cooked (i.e., with runny yolk)o date, there is no epidemiological evidence to suggest that people have been infected with avian influenza by consumption of eggs or egg products.


-Recommended good hygienic practices to reduce exposure to the virus in areas with outbreaks in poultry:

1) No birds from flocks with disease should enter the food chain.
2) Do not eat raw poultry parts, including raw blood, or raw eggs in or from areas with outbreaks in poultry.
3) Separate raw meat from cooked or ready-to-eat foods to avoid contamination. Do not use the same chopping board or the same knife.
4) Do not handle both raw and cooked foods without washing your hands in between and do not place cooked meat back on the same plate or surface it was on prior to cooking. Do not use raw or soft-boiled eggs in food preparations that will not be heat treated or cooked.
5) Keep clean and wash your hands. After handling frozen or thawed raw poultry or eggs, wash your hands thoroughly with soap.
6) Wash and disinfect all surfaces and utensils that have been in contact with the raw meat.
7) Cook thoroughly: Thorough cooking of poultry meat will inactivate the virus. Either ensure that the poultry meat reaches 70°C at the centre of the product (“piping” hot) or that the meat is not pink in any part. Egg yolks should not be runny or liquid.


World Health Organization. (2005). No bird flu risk for consumers from properly cooked poultry and eggs. Retrieved on April 2, 2007 from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr66/en/


3) What ingredients in frozen cakes might be affected by avian flu?

Eggs and egg yolks are the major ingredients in frozen cakes that might be affected by avain flu, however as mention by WHO, eggs that undergo high heat treatment will have the virus killed. And in the frozen cake, the batter is heated at high temperature so it can be assumed that the pathogenic virus on eggs are removed in this case.


-other reLevAnT siTes...

-http://www.foodsafety.gov/