Physical Challenges Underlying Food Safety
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Physical Challenges Underlying Food Safety Peter Schroeder Introduction The safety of today’s novel foods and food materials, especially those produced by means of genetic modification, has been in the news in recent times. However, the major safety problems in the food chain come from much more long-standing causes. The principal risk remains the health threat from pathogenic bacteria. Other risks include the food chain as a vector for certain serious viral infections such as hepatitis A. Food as a source of significant (and, in extremis, fatal) allergenic reactions is also a growing concern. Another significant food-safety problem is the contamination of food by potentially harmful foreign substances (pesticides, plasticizers, heavy metals, fungal micotoxins, etc.). Cases of bacterially caused food poisoning are at an extremely high level in much of the developed world. Recent statistics suggest that more than 4 million people in the United Kingdom alone are infected with either Salmonella or Escherichia coli 0157 every year.1 Worldwide, more than a million people annually die from Salmonella poisoning; many of these are in the developing world (see Figures 1–3).2 Food-borne viruses may be a more serious problem than traditionally considered. In the United Kingdom, 300 cases of foodborne hepatitis A were reported in 1986; this number had risen to 2000 in 1998. Although genomics is revolutionizing our ability to understand how pathogenic bacteria cause food poisoning, we still need to be able to study bacteria in real multimaterial situations (such as in foodstuffs) under the influence of a range of physical and chemical parameters (in this case, processing and packaging). This article will discuss some of the bacterially and nonbacterially derived foodsafety issues and suggest some possible research challenges that physicists and materials scientists may find interesting to address.
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Figure 1. Incidence of typhoid fever versus nontyphoidal salmonellosis in the United States, 1930–1994. (From Reference 2.)
Figure 2. Reported cases of infectious intestinal disease in the United Kingdom, 1983–1999. (From Reference 2.)
Figure 3. Reported cases of food poisoning in the United Kingdom, 1982–1998. (From Reference 2.)
Why Food Poisoning is a Relevant Problem Today Why is microbially caused food poisoning such a significant (and, in some cases, growing) problem, in both developed and developing countries? The reasons for this are complex and interrelated, but at least four major factors are involved: The dynamic nature of the food-pathogen population, that is, the ability of bacteria to respond and adapt to environmental stress, has led to the emergence of new strains such as E. coli 0157 and to the increased virulence of bacteria previously regarded as “harmless.” Food suppliers are responding to the consumer demand for fresher, less heavily processed products by using “softer” preservation technologies. These include chilling and inert-atmosphere packaging, and they are replacing the traditional “harder” tech
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