F_S 1030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Peanut Butter, Foodborne Illness, Campylobacter
7 May 2016
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Document Summary
Nil: spewing, cramps, rare hamburger day before. Alice: thin, digestive issues and mental fog years. The american food supply is the safest in the world. Media covers outbreaks all the time: peanut butter, hamburger, spinach. Famous people get ill, too: see insert 1. 1. Journalists aren"t scientists and scientists aren"t journalists: food issues are complex. Any food that makes us sick is when we eat it: presence of harmful microbes, presence of natural toxins, presence of environmental contaminants, presence of harmful additives, presence of allergens. Fresh foods contain more harmful microbes than processed products. Sources include: soil, feces (insect, rodent, and bird droppings, plus organic fertilizers) Listeria: 2 out of 10 people die. Spoiled food isn"t pleasant to eat, but it is not necessarily unsafe. Not all food that is unsafe may show signs of spoilage. The common factor between spoiled and unsafe food is usually microbes: different ones, control of handling and storage is needed.
