January / February, 2001
Engineering
Applications for Food Safety
By:
Bradley Marks
In recent years, food safety has been an ever-present topic in the popular press. Not surprisingly, public perceptions about food safety are not always consistent with scientific facts. Our nation's food supply remains the safest in the world. However, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that there are still 76 million cases of foodborne diseases annually in the U.S., which lead to 323,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Even though an economic value can never be assigned to lost lives, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases estimates that foodborne illnesses annually cost the U.S. $5-6 billion in direct medical expenses and lost productivity. Additionally, although great technical strides have been made over the past century in ensuring food safety, the spectrum of organisms causing these foodborne illnesses (e.g., Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella, and E. coli O157:H7) continues to evolve and, therefore, presents an ongoing technical challenge.
Given this general climate, biosystems engineers are in a unique position to impact food safety. Epidemiologists, food microbiologists, and chemists advance our understanding of foodborne pathogens and contaminants B how they cause diseases, how they react to environmental influences, and how to isolate and identify them. However, this knowledge must ultimately be scaled-up to design and implement technical solutions to the real problems faced by the food industry, particularly due to increasing public pressures and changing government regulations. Consequently, several members of the MSU Biosystems Engineering faculty are currently tackling food safety challenges that span the production-processing system B from farm to consumer.
Dr. Roger Brook and Daniel Guyer made a significant contribution to these efforts by getting a competitive USDA grant to fund two fellowships for Ph.D. students specializing in biosystems engineering for food safety and quality. One of these fellowships has been awarded to a new student, and high quality candidates are being sought for the other. This high-profile program allows the department to attract the best and brightest engineering students with an interest in food safety.
Dr. Brook and postdoctoral research associate Dr. Joey Norikane (USDA-ARS) are also investigating several technologies for postharvest sanitation of horticultural crops and water used in handling those crops. In collaboration with Dr. Willie Kirk (MSU Dept. of Plant Pathology), they are evaluating Purogene (a chlorine dioxide agent) for applications in potato storage systems. The challenge is to balance the efficacy of the agent against any corrosive effect on storage facilities and equipment. Additionally, they are working with Dr. Elliot Ryser (MSU Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition) to evaluate sanitation methods for water that is used in handling and washing of fresh produce. For example, they are testing the efficacy of electrolytically generated copper and silver ions in reducing microbial build-up in produce washing operations.
Obviously, microbial safety is also a significant concern in the production of muscle-based foods. To address this problem at the source, Dr. Evangelyn Alocilja is collaborating with Dr. Wesley Osburn (MSU Depts. of Animal Science and Food Science and Human Nutrition) and other researchers to develop rapid and early detection systems for bacterial pathogens. One of her developments is the E. coli sniffer, an electronic nose that can detect and differentiate E. coli.
