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Background/Purpose: Foodborne disease is a global health problem. We aim to provide the first national estimate on disease burden from foodborne illnesses in Taiwan. Methods: We adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) methodology framework, and used a hazard-based incidence approach to calculate disability-adjusted life year (DALY) lost to foodborne diseases. Estimated annual incidences and associated medical costs are based on the National Health Insurance research database. We redistributed incidence of unspecified acute gastroenteritis to specific foodborne pathogens, using reported bacteria, virus, parasite survey results in such cases as the reference. The percentage of foodborne illnesses not seeking medical attention is based on data reported from a nationwide survey. Results: During 2012–2015, 3,895,914 (90% confidence interval [CI]: 3,493,530–4,442,690) foodborne illnesses (1,445,384 sought medical care, with 50 deaths) occurred annually, which caused a total loss of 4974 (90%CI: 4671–5367) DALYs in Taiwan. The annual medical cost was NT$1.3 billion. Young (

Foodborne pathogens and occupational hazards are two primary safety concerns for U.S. beef slaughterhouses. The anthropogenic environmental impacts due to intensive resource use and pollution also exert threats to human health. Quantifying human health impacts from various sources remain a grand sustainability challenge for U.S. beef industry. We develop a framework to systematically estimate and compare human health impacts associated with U.S. beef foodborne illnesses from major pathogens and environmental impacts and occupational hazards from U.S. beef slaughtering on a common metric, disability-adjusted life year (DALY). Foodborne illnesses and occupational hazards are estimated by synthesizing published data and methodologies while environmental impacts are quantified using life cycle assessment. In spite of inherent uncertainties in estimation, results show that the environmental impacts and occupational hazards from beef slaughtering are of same magnitude with foodborne illnesses from beef consumption on human health. Salmonella and Clostridium perfringens contribute 51% and 28%, respectively, to the beef foodborne DALY; Global warming and fine particulate matter formation, due to electricity and natural gas use, are primary drivers for environmental DALY, accounting 62% and 28%, respectively. Occupational DALY is on average lower than environmental DALY from beef slaughtering and foodborne DALY. The impact of new food safety interventions that use additional resources to improve food safety should be considered jointly with environmental impacts and occupational hazards to avoid unintended shifts and net increase of human health impacts. The methodology and results from this study provide a new perspective on reforms of the U.S. food safety regulations building toward sustainability in the food processing industry. Keywords: Environmental human health, Foodborne illness, Life cycle assessment, Occupational hazards, U.S. beef sustainability

While the large majority of foodborne illnesses cannot be attributed to a specific source, the identification and investigation of foodborne disease outbreaks is important for many reasons. The most immediate priority in investigating outbreaks is intervening to prevent further infections. Thorough investigations can also provide information about the immediate and originating sources of food contamination, changing pathogen epidemiology, changes in food production and handling processes, and new pathogens or vehicles of contamination. Better understanding of how such factors contribute to outbreaks can lead to insights into sporadic foodborne diseases and inform efforts to prevent them in the future, at all stages of the “farm-to-fork” continuum.

Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that live attached to a surface, embedded in a protective extracellular matrix. Food presents a favourable substrate for biofilm formation because it provides nutrients and good environmental conditions for microorganisms to thrive. In addition, surfaces in the food industry are in constant contact with new foods that can bring nutrients and/or new microorganisms to a biofilm. Biofilms often show a high resistance to disinfection methods (e.g., antibiotics and chemical treatments) and are the cause of foodborne illnesses and food spoilage. Non-thermal or cold atmospheric-pressure plasma (CAP) is being investigated as a new technology for the disinfection of thermally labile materials (including food) and food-contact surfaces. CAP consists of a mix of reactive chemical species and charged particles that have antibacterial activity. This chapter describes the use of CAP to eliminate biofilms and discusses examples of its application in the food industry.

Nonalcoholic beverages that are usually consumed as refreshing drinks or meal replacement play a significant role in the human diet worldwide. Due to the procedures involved in manufacturing, product diversity, efficient distribution, abundance, easy accessibility, and extensive consumption, nonalcoholic beverages can be potentially considered as one of the key contributors for foodborne illnesses. Nutritionally rich beverages are ideal sources for microbial survival, growth and as such can enhance the production of toxic compounds. Despite the considerable efforts in minimizing microbial cross contamination in beverage production, the pathogenic microorganisms from environmental, animal, or human sources can easily enter into beverage food systems during any of the steps from farm to consumer. These steps can include harvesting and raw material production, manufacturing process, storage, transportation, and even retailing and household handling. While the global demands for microbial food safety increase steadily, new threats also continue to be identified regularly. Therefore, employing effective and achievable strategies for minimizing or preventing microbial food contamination issues related to widely consumed food and beverages are essential. This chapter explains the fundamental aspects of microbial food safety in nonalcoholic beverages including dairy drinks, fruit and vegetable juices, concentrates, soft drinks, hot beverages, as well as other miscellaneous beverage products. The chapter starts with the description of diversity, brief manufacturing processes, and classification of various nonalcoholic beverages, followed by sources and occurrence of pathogenic microorganisms in beverage products. The microbial safety aspects emphasis on the recent outbreaks and incidence describing their role in foodborne illnesses. Finally, the risk management and the strategies to minimize the foodborne illnesses related to nonalcoholic beverages are also discussed.

Global health is a major priority, and diseases caused by foodborne pathogens represent a serious challenge to human health. Therefore, fast, simple, and inexpensive analytic methods are required to detect these toxic pathogens at the initial stage of infection. Considerable research has been performed on conventional detection methods, such as polymerase chain reaction, culture-based methods, nucleic-acid-based methods, and immunoassays. However, these conventional methods require sophisticated equipment and are time-consuming and expensive. Accurate, rapid, simple, and cost-effective nanotechnology-based analytic methods have been developed recently to detect toxic pathogens. In this future article, we review the recent trends in nanoparticle-mediated biosensing approaches to detect foodborne pathogens with an emphasis on future challenges. Use of these simple and effective strategies might offer commercial advantages in the medical field compared with the established conventional methods to mitigate serious foodborne illnesses.

Food safety draws considerable attention in the modern pace of the world owing to rapid-changing food recipes and food habits. Foodborne illnesses associated with pathogens, toxins, and other contaminants pose serious threat to human health. Besides, a large amount of money is spent on both analyses and control measures, which causes significant loss to the food industry. Conventional detection methods for bacterial pathogens and toxins are time consuming and laborious, requiring certain sophisticated instruments and trained personnel. In recent years, nanotechnology has emerged as a promising field for solving food safety issues in terms of detecting contaminants, enabling controlled release of preservatives to extend the shelf life of foods, and improving food-packaging strategies. Nanomaterials including metal oxide and metal nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and quantum dots are gaining a prominent role in the design of sensors and biosensors for food analysis. In this review, various nanomaterial-based sensors reported in the literature for detection of several foodborne bacterial pathogens and toxins are summarized highlighting their principles, advantages, and limitations in terms of simplicity, sensitivity, and multiplexing capability. In addition, the application through a noncross-linking method without the need for any surface modification is also presented for detection of pork adulteration in meat products.

Foodborne illnesses are a global menace on public health. However, because they are expensive, time-consuming, and nonspecific, standard methods used before now for detecting foodborne pathogens and biotoxins are often unsuitable for real-time detection and surveillance, particularly in low-resource communities that may serve as the source of the food basket in a geographical location. Improvements in systems for the robust detection and screening of foodborne pathogens are therefore needed to effectively regulate the transmission of foodborne pathogens by promoting early treatment and/or isolation of infected products. Interestingly, research work in bioaffinity interactions have led to advances in SELEX (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) technology for the generation of short, single-stranded DNA/RNA molecular probes (known as aptamers) that bind selectively to specific pathogenic targets and membrane receptors. Immobilized aptamers also yields aptasensors that are effective for detection in real time. This chapter focuses on the merits and applicability of various established apta-assays over conventional techniques for the detection and screening of foodborne pathogens and biotoxins.

In vitro meat production system is the production of meat outside the food animals by culturing the stem cells derived from farm animals inside the bioreactor by using advanced tissue engineering techniques. Besides winning the favour of animal rights activists for its humane production of meat, in vitro meat production system also circumvents many of the issues associated with conventional meat production systems, like excessively brutal slaughter of food animals, nutrition-related diseases, foodborne illnesses, resource use, antibiotic-resistant pathogen strains, and massive emissions of methane that contribute to global warming. As the conditions in an in vitro meat production system are controlled and manipulatable, it will be feasible to produce designer, chemically safe and disease-free meat on sustainable basis. However, many challenges are to be faced before cultured meat becomes commercially feasible. Although, the production cost and the public acceptance are of paramount importance, huge funds are desperately required for further research in the field.

Surveillance is defined as “the systematic ongoing collection, collation, and analysis of data for public health purposes and the timely dissemination of information for the assessment and the response as necessary.” The overall goal of surveillance is to use data to mainly identify foodborne disease outbreaks; identify high-risk groups, place (areas), and time; and to monitor and evaluate the public health program. Surveillance is a continuous cycle, which includes setting objectives, data collection, consolidation, data analysis, interpretation, evaluation, dissemination, and feedback. The integrated Disease Surveillance Project in India is an example of passive surveillance whereas, FoodNet is an example of active surveillance. A multipronged approach with an intersectorial coordination will go a long way in preventing and controlling foodborne illnesses.

Consumption of fruits and vegetables is a practical and important way to reduce disease risk and maximize good health. However, fresh produce is also recognized as the cause of most foodborne illnesses in the United States. Foodborne illness outbreaks bring about significant losses to the produce growers and the economy. In addition, recurring produce-related outbreaks erode consumer confidence in fresh produce and negatively impact the long-term development of the produce industry. Over the years, many strategies have been developed to reduce the risk of microbial contamination of produce. The preventive controls that have been developed and tested to reduce microbial risk include chemical sanitizers and physical intervention technologies, such as UV light, cold plasma, and power ultrasound. Ultrasound is mechanical waves having a frequency above the threshold of human hearing. Ultrasound-assisted washing of fresh produce has shown enhanced sanitation efficacy mainly due to the physical effects of acoustic cavitation. In this chapter, the principles of ultrasound-enhanced sanitation, its efficacy, the instruments used in ultrasound-assisted sanitation research and test, and the effects of ultrasound treatment on the quality of fresh produce will be discussed.

Outbreak is any unusual occurrence of disease or health related events clearly in excess of the usual occurrence in a defined community, region or season. For diseases which are under elimination or eradication, even a single case is considered as an outbreak. Outbreak investigation is one of the most challenging tasks faced by a public health specialist. Outbreaks cannot always be predicted but recognition of early warning signs, timely and prompt investigations to identify the cause, and the use of specific preventive and control measures can reduce morbidity/mortality. The primary aim of an outbreak investigation is to control, limit the spread and identify strategies for prevention or elimination of the risk of such outbreaks in the future. Outbreak investigations involve multiple steps in identifying the source or agent involved in the outbreak. The role of descriptive and analytical epidemiology plays a major role in outbreak investigations. Preventive and control measures should be implemented immediately on preliminary investigation and should not be held up till finalization of investigation or the laboratory confirmation.

Foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic agents continue to be one of the most important public health concerns worldwide. Rapid and sensitive detection methods for pathogenic microorganisms are essential to mount effective responses to microbial contamination, including foodborne outbreaks and bioterrorist attacks. Advanced strategies exploiting the latest micro- and nanoscale technologies have been developed in the past decades, bringing new insights into the detection of pathogenic agents in foods. In particular, recent efforts have focused on unique sample-preparation methods, novel-assay formats, and miniaturized detection platforms. In this chapter, we summarize the latest micro- and nanotechnology-based approaches to detect pathogenic agents in food, as well as, highlight the most promising technologies with regard to their future exploitation. Our goal is to provide the reader with new insights into how and when these technologies can be exploited to ensure the enumeration and accurate detection of pathogenic bacteria in foods.

Noroviruses are the most common etiology of acute gastroenteritis worldwide, causing an estimated 685 million illnesses, 210,000 deaths, and 15 million disability-adjusted life years annually. Approximately 14–23% of all norovirus illnesses are attributed to foodborne transmission, making norovirus the leading cause of foodborne illnesses and fourth-leading cause of death from foodborne illness. Although the number of illnesses and the severity of outcomes vary by geographic region and mortality strata, norovirus is a major cause of foodborne illness in all countries. Young children and older adults are at higher risk for severe outcomes from norovirus disease. Challenges to estimating norovirus disease burden include the lack of widely available rapid diagnostic testing for norovirus, variation in health-seeking behavior and stool specimen testing, and inconsistent diagnostic coding for norovirus disease, particularly in lower- and middle-income countries.

Cassava products obtained by submerged or solid-state fermentation, including lactic and alcoholic fermented products, are presented using their South American, African (mostly Nigerian), and Asian (mostly Indonesian) names. The role that lactic acid bacteria and amylolytic fungi play in the fermentation processes is explained in detail, and the hazards associated with these products, starting with cyanogenic compounds, continuing with mycotoxins and pathogens, and ending with choking, are reviewed, together with how to control them. Epidemiologic data in relation to cassava-associated hazards are provided and are accompanied by contemporary considerations to minimize the risk of foodborne illnesses. The regulatory frame supporting the safety of cassava fermented products is also presented. Some future trends on cassava production and processing and expectations that people have from this crop are discussed from the perspective of consumer safety.

Foodborne illnesses can be caused by a wide range of microorganisms. Data analysis can help to determine which microorganisms give the highest contribution to the number of foodborne illnesses. This helps to decide which pathogen(s) to focus on in order to reduce the number of illnesses. The same accounts for the products that are related to foodborne illnesses. Quantitative microbiology can be used in assessing food safety in a farm-to-fork approach. Evaluating the estimated effect of various control strategies can help to decide which combination of strategies in the chain is most effective and efficient to achieve a certain food safety objective. The potential of data analysis and quantitative microbiology is clear, yet more work needs to be done to incorporate recontamination in predictive models. The models available at the moment, although simple, can already be applied to determine the importance of (re)contamination compared with growth and inactivation of pathogens.

Globally, foodborne pathogens are a major public health concern. In this chapter, we provide a broad description of the problem of foodborne diseases, and current and future detection technologies for food safety assurance and prevention of foodborne illnesses. Current detection approaches include sample processing, culturing, and detection using the nucleic acid or antibody-based method. Improvement in target recognition, and signal generation and analysis, can be combined to achieve more sensitive, faster, and more informative screening technologies. This introductory chapter summarizes potential applications of the high throughput screening approach in food pathogen testing and for development of advanced biosensor-based technologies in the coming years.

Outbreaks of foodborne illnesses related to the consumption of fresh produce occur all over the world. Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) for fresh produce can be used to enhance microbiological safety in the production, distribution and consumption of fresh produce. This chapter describes the prevalence of contamination of fresh produce, possible routes of pathogen contamination and pathogen behaviour on fresh produce during distribution. The information described here will be useful for QMRA as supporting knowledge.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the risks of foodborne illness, particularly as it affects the consumption of fresh or minimally processed tree fruits and nuts. Foodborne pathogens are not typically considered to be part of the normal epiphytic populations on fresh tree fruits or nuts. The surfaces of fresh produce, such as tree fruits, have traditionally been viewed as hostile environments for human pathogens. However, favorable conditions may exist in microsites on plant surfaces where growth and survival may occur. For many foodborne outbreaks related to tree fruits, the actual mechanism through which the contamination occurred remains unknown. Poor hygiene practices and sanitation are risk factors contributing to outbreaks in fresh tree fruits. Changes in normal procedures can also lead to unsafe practices. Also, for nuts, as well as for fruits, harvesting or processing methods may play a significant role in their subsequent contamination. To reduce the risk of contamination, each step in the production of fresh fruits and nuts must be examined, beginning with field conditions. For tree fruits meant for the fresh market, it is critical that Good Agricultural Practices guidelines be followed. Fruits destined for the fresh market should be tree-picked, not ground harvested, and blemish free. Damaged and ground harvested fruits should be directed to those products that will receive processing designed to destroy any pathogens present.

Fresh and fresh-cut produce had been linked to numerous foodborne illnesses leading up to the summer of 2006, when the largest outbreak associated with fresh spinach took shape. Earthbound Farm packaged the spinach that led to the outbreak and recall that sickened over 200 and killed three. Earthbound emerged with a new, multi-hurdle approach to food safety in fresh-cut produce. Many of the enhanced controls focused on testing. In this chapter, the reader will learn about the recall, as well as how the multi-hurdle program was launched and the nuances of managing a new concept in an adolescent industry.

Publisher Summary Since 1985, there has been a very strong interest in irradiated food, thereby reflecting an increased awareness of the benefits of food irradiation. Treatment of food with ionizing radiation is increasingly being recognized as a means of reducing foodborne illnesses and associated medical and other costs. The plethora of techniques suggested for the identification of irradiated food may be classified under three broad categories: physical, chemical, and biological. An important landmark regarding the detection standards occurred in December 1996 when the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) adopted five methods as European standards for the detection of irradiated food. The procedures adopted were electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy methods for food containing bone and food containing cellulose, thermoluminescence (TL) for spices and herbs, and chemical methods based on isolation and detection of hydrocarbon and cyclobutanones in food containing fat. TL has been validated as a qualitative analysis method (EN 1788:2001) for the detection of irradiation treatment. It is based on the evaluation of the ratio between the TL intensity of the minerals separated from the food sample under investigation and of the same minerals after irradiation at 1 kGy.

Foodborne disease is due to microbial pathogens, naturally produced toxins, or other chemicals that have entered the food supply chain. Infectious gastroenteritis is the most common illness and can range from mild to serious illness to death in vulnerable people. Other non-gastroenteritis illnesses and sequelae also occur. Estimating the disease burden transmitted by food is difficult as most illness can also be transmitted by pathways other than food. With increasing globalization and changing methods of food production and distribution, there is ever-increasing potential for widespread outbreaks affecting many people. Prevention and control of foodborne illness remains a challenge.