Nutrition and Food Safety, Second Edition

Terry Smith

Description

Praise for the previous edition:

"...easy-to-read...well-balanced...a good amount of detail."—School Library Journal

Food recalls have made people nervous about eating some of their favorite foods. Every year, millions of people contract a foodborne illness. While many cases are nothing more than an upset stomach, some result in serious sickness. Nutrition and Food Safety, Second Edition explores the many risks to our food and water supplies, including bacterial contamination, agricultural pesticides, food additives, allergens, and industrial chemicals. Rapid changes in the food industry often outpace the ability of government oversight to protect the consumer. Learn about the interconnecting responsibilities of farmers, food processors, retailers, government regulators, and consumers to assure a safe food supply.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Diététique
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Dieta
• Additive
• Nutrient
• Food
• Diet
• Health
• Feed
• Safety
• Fitness
• Bacteria
• Nutrition
• diététique

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438143835
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Nutrition and Food Safety, Second Edition
Copyright © 2019 by Infobase
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:
Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001
ISBN 978-1-4381-4383-5
You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.infobase.com
Contents Introduction Chapters Introduction to Food Safety Causes of Foodborne Illnesses Food Allergies and Food Intolerance Pesticides, Antibiotics, and Other Problems of Food Production Food Processing and Preparation Genetically Modified Foods Drinking Water Safety Intentional Contamination of the Food Supply Future of Food Safety Support Materials Glossary Further Resources Bibliography About the Author Index
Introduction

A hundred years ago, people received nutritional guidance from mothers and grandmothers: Eat your carrots because they're good for your eyes; don't eat too many potatoes because they'll make you fat; be sure to get plenty of roughage so you can more easily move your bowels. Today, everyone seems to offer more advice: Take a vitamin supplement to optimize your health; don't eat fish with cabbage because you won't be able to digest them together; you can't stay healthy on a vegetarian diet. Nutrition is one of those topics about which all people seem to think they know something, or at least have an opinion. Whether it is the clerk in your local health food store recommending that you buy supplements or the woman behind you in line at the grocery store raving about the latest low-carbohydrate diet, everyone is ready to offer you nutritional advice. How do you know what to believe or, more importantly, what to do?
The purpose of these books is to help you answer these questions. Even if you don't love learning about science, at the very least you probably enjoy certain foods and want to stay healthy—or become healthier. In response to this, these books are designed to make the science you need to understand as palatable as the foods you love. Once you understand the basics, you can apply this simple health knowledge to your everyday decisions about nutrition and health. The Healthy Eating set includes one book with all of the basic nutrition information you need to choose a healthy diet, as well as five others that cover topics of special concern to many: weight management, exercise, disease prevention, food safety, and eating disorders.
Our goal is not to tell you to stop eating potato chips and candy bars, give up fast food, or always eat your vegetables. Instead, it is to provide you with the information you need to make informed choices about your diet. We hope you will recognize that potato chips and candy are not poison, but they should only be eaten as occasional treats. We hope you will decide for yourself that fast food is something you can indulge in every now and then, but is not a good choice every day. We encourage you to recognize that although you should eat your vegetables, not everyone always does, so you should do your best to try new vegetables and fruits and eat them as often as possible.
These books take the science of nutrition out of the classroom and allow you to apply this information to the choices you make about foods, exercise, dietary supplements, and other lifestyle decisions that are important to your health. This knowledge should help you choose a healthy diet while allowing you to enjoy the diversity of flavors, textures, and tastes that food provides, while also encouraging you to explore the meanings food holds in our society. When you eat a healthy diet, you will feel good in the short term and enjoy health benefits in the long term. We can't personally evaluate each meal you consume, but we believe these books will give you the tools to make your own nutritious choices.
Lori A. Smolin, Ph.D., and Mary B. Grosvenor, M.S., R.D.
Chapters
Introduction to Food Safety

Food safety was far from dance instructor Stephanie Smith's mind as she enjoyed the hamburger her mother prepared for dinner one fall Sunday in 2007. Yet over the next few days, Smith developed gradually worsening symptoms of an intestinal illness. Five days after eating the hamburger, Smith became so incapacitated by pain that she was admitted to the hospital. Doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks to control her seizures. She survived, but the illness left her with severely damaged kidneys and unable to walk. As reported in a 2009 New York Times article, Smith continues to ask herself, "Why me?" and "Why from a hamburger?"
Smith had the great misfortune to eat a hamburger that had been contaminated with an especially virulent strain of Escherichia coli , identified scientifically as O157:H7, based on certain distinctive markers. Health officials estimate that tens of thousands of people are sickened by E. coli O157:H7 each year. A small percentage of them develop a serious condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome , and a few have even more severe outcomes such as Smith's. Most E. coli O157:H7 contamination occurs in ground beef, even though it has been illegal for companies and grocers to sell ground beef contaminated with this virulent strain since an outbreak in 2004 caused the deaths of four children. E. coli O157:H7 contamination has also been detected in other foods, such as fruit juice and lettuce.
The contaminated hamburger Smith ate that Sunday was sold by Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food products. However, Cargill did not produce the beef from which the frozen patties were made. Rather, the patties were prepared from meat products obtained from at least three slaughterhouses and from a company that processes fatty trimmings carved from better cuts of meat. By using these combined sources, Cargill was able to reduce their costs by about 25% from the cost of making hamburger patties from a single meat source. Some of the low-grade meat products used in the manufacture of hamburger patties come from parts of a cow that are more likely to be contaminated with feces, and, thus, are more likely to harbor E. coli O157:H7. Cargill did not test the various meats and trimmings for contamination before mixing them to make hamburger patties. Thus, it was impossible for federal investigators to pinpoint the original source of the bacteria that sickened Smith and others.
Continuing outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 contamination have increased pressure on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and on the meatpacking industry to improve the safety of our food supply. Additional guidelines for industry procedures and food inspections have been imposed, but food safety experts contend that much more is required to assure that food supplies are free of the contamination that had such a devastating effect on Stephanie Smith's life.

Food and Drug Administration inspectors tour factories and production lines to ensure food items are produced according to safety regulations.
Source: Phovoir. Shutterstock.
History of Food Safety
It is likely that the first prehistoric people to enjoy a meal of roasted meat were delighted at how much better it tasted compared to raw foods. Little did they know that their discovery of fire for cooking their food was also the first step toward reducing foodborne illnesses. Although history does not record the details, it is certain that people have suffered and died from foodborne illness beginning with the very origins of man. Ancient people roamed their surroundings in search of edible plants and animals, and it is logical to assume they would have most easily captured animals that were sickly and more likely to harbor disease. Because people lacked methods for preserving food, they no doubt ate spoiled and rancid foods that made them sick. Plus, many of them probably died from eating poisonous mushrooms and other toxic plants before they learned which ones to avoid.
Gradually, primitive people shifted to a system of farming and domestication of animals. Methods of food preservation were discovered, such as drying, salting, and fermentation. Still, early recorded history includes references to dietary practices and records of mass deaths that suggest the existence of foodborne illness. Some scientists have interpreted the biblical story of a severe plague following an Israelite feast of quail as a case of mass food poisoning.
Outbreaks of one particularly strange foodborne disease were familiar to Europeans of the Middle Ages. It was commonly called Holy Fire. Many believed that the horrible suffering people endured from the disease was a punishment from God. Victims' bodies might be twisted in pain while their arms and legs felt like they were on fire. In the 1600s, a French physician noted that the timing of these outbreaks corresponded to grain harvests in which strange growths appeared on some of the grains. Eventually, the physician's observations were proved correct, and the disease was named ergotism. It is caused by ergot , a toxic fungus that grows on grain crops and ultimately ends up being baked into the bread made from the grain. It is even possible that the hallucinations experienced by the accusers of the Salem Witch Trial may have been due to the same toxins in bread that came from the local bakery.
One modern reading of Bosch's St. Anthony painting suggests that it is symbolically portraying the effects of a terrible real-life disease. Perhaps the strange animals are the wild hallucinations of someone suffering from ergotism. A fire in the background suggests the disease's terrible burning sensations and the disease's common name of St. Anthony's Fire. An amputated foot may represent the loss of limbs. One vegetable-shaped creature may represent a plant that was commonly