PHAGE TECHNOLOGY-ANOTHER WEAPON AGAINST LISTERIA CONTAMINATION

Bacteriophage are viruses which can kill bacteria through infecting the latter. Wherever there is a colony of bacteria, phages are likely to be seen acting as a check on their uncontrolled proliferation. Phages inject their genetic material into the bacterial cell and hijack their metabolic system leading to their eventual death of the host. It has been reported that phages were extensively used in the erstwhile Soviet Union against pathogens successfully, as an alternative to antibiotics, though as a therapy it never emerged out side this region. Realizing that Listeria contamination is threatening the food markets in some of the developed countries, attempts to use phages against this deadly pathogen resulted in preparations containing the phage for effectively decontamination of surface areas in many solid foods without affecting the sensory quality of the food treated and posing no safety problem to the consumer. With approvals from safety authorities in many countries, phage technology is likely to emerge as a significant tool to fight food poisoning episodes involving food pathogens in the coming years. Here is a take on this latest development in food processing.     

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has approved Listex P100 as a processing aid against Listeria monocytogenes, making Listex the first phage for product safety approved in Australia and New Zealand. The phage is produced by Dutch company Micreos. According to FSANZ's approval report: * The safety assessment did not identify any public health and safety concerns associated with using Listex P100 to treat food. * It is effective at reducing levels of Listeria monocytogenes on the surface of solid RTE foods evaluated. * There is no appreciable ongoing technological function when it is applied to the surface of various solid RTE foods, therefore it fits into the category of processing aids. This is consistent with international approaches.  * There were no measures that would be more cost effective than Listex P100. "FSANZ's decision marks an important step in the acceptance and appreciation of phage technology," said Mark Offerhaus, CEO of Micreos. "The review process was thorough, transparent and involved all stakeholders; an example of how new - and suitable - technology should be brought to market." Following approvals in the USA, Canada and the Netherlands, Micreos applied for approval of Listex in Australia and New Zealand. Easy to apply, Listex is sprayed onto the surface of food products during processing, killing Listeria without any sensory or other effects.

With many multi drug resistant bacteria emerging during the last few years, world is not seeing any new antibiotics being developed that can fight diseases caused by increasingly virulent and rugged bugs evolving through mutation. As phages occur widely they provide an answer to the prayer by human beings to develop newer technologies against diseases which do not respond to existing antibiotics. Sea water is supposed to be one of the richest sources of phages and it is possible that man may increasingly turn to this source to develop a variety of phage based technologies to fight human and animal diseases in the coming years.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE MEAT "TRIMMINGS" DEBATE-ARE THEY SAFE?

Meat industry seems to be having frequent problems regarding the safety of some of their products and during the last few years it is pilloried by one scandal after the other, The inhuman abattoir practices and use of antibiotics liberally were two of the most serious issues that caught the attention of the consumers during the last 2-3 years. Frequent contamination episodes further caused huge embarrassment to the industry. The most recent incident concerns the practice of making ground meat, which was found to be fraught with the risk of contaminating the product with E.coli. It concerns use of trimmings from the cows, recovered from layers nearest to the skin, for admixing with the normal meat for achieving lower cost of production. However according to some safety experts these trimmings being close to the skin are often contaminated with pathogens and hence pose greater risk to the consumer. Here is a take on this latest controversy.

"[Trimmings are] taken from the outermost part, and they happen to be the fattiest part of the cow," says Moss. "So they're put into a centrifuge which spits out the protein parts of the material." The term "pink slime" was in fact initially coined by a U.S. Department of Agriculture official Moss met who had seen the "bright pink, aqueous" stuff in a plant. Sounds pretty unappetizing, but there is some appeal to the material: mainly its price. "In the meat industry, there's something called least cost formulations," says Moss. "Companies will mix and match trimmings from different parts of the cow and different suppliers to achieve the perfect level of fatness. This material is ... slightly less expensive." Cheap it may be, but because it comes from the outermost part of the carcass, it's also more susceptible to contamination than other cuts of meat. That's because it could come in contact with the cow's hide, which could have excrement containing pathogens like the dangerous forms of E. coli. The industry tries to purify the material with gaseous ammonia, which raises the alkalinity to a level that E. coli can't tolerate, Moss says. USDA's food safety division says this method is effective. And the company that manufactures it says it also has a rigorous testing system in place. But Moss' s reporting has shown that school food officials have found the bad kind of E. coli in the material where they least expected – the trimmings. "It's entirely approved by USDA ... and accepted as school lunch as a component in the ground beef they purchase," says Moss. "So far they've been holding pat on the safety issue. They're satisfied that their testing program and the way they handle and cook beef is entirely safe for kids." None of the fast food companies — McDonalds, Taco Bell and Burger King — that decided to stop buying trimmings mentioned safety concerns, either. And even if it's been banished from a lot of fast food burgers, the material is probably still in a lot of ground beef sold at the grocery store. Except it's impossible for consumers to know that since USDA doesn't require meat companies to label whether ground beef includes trimmings.

First reported in products distributed to schools under nutrition programs, trimmings seem to be a part of all products made from ground beef meat used in many main stream products by the food industry. Though use of trimmings is not banned and found safe by the authorities, industry voluntarily stopped supplying products containing trimmings to the schools. However no one knows whether these trimmings form significant portion of ground beef being used by the industry as a whole. Though some major players have already announced discontinuing with this practice, there is no way a consumer can know whether the products in the market still contain trimmings in the absence of any compulsory label declaration. Fortunately, most of the meat industry players do process these trimmings scientifically killing all pathogens though there may be some exceptions which get noticed. There is no way the authorities can clamp down on these practices as they are perfectly legal, at least as of now.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

LABELING OF GM FOODS-THE LAST BASTION OF RESISTANCE MAY CRUMBLE SOON

Are genetically modified foods and ingredients absolutely safe for human consumption? Probably with the present conflicting claims and interests of pressure groups and lack of critical volume of data in human experiments, it is doubtful whether even "God" himself can answer this vexing question with any reasonable degree of certainty! Keeping aside the issue of safety, those who permit GM foods in their country can at least be transparent with their citizens by declaring on the label about the use of such unnatural ingredients in formulated foods. This is what American citizens are asking of their government for the last several years. So far the American government has not budged from its stand that GM foods are safe and consumers must "believe" them. But winds of change are blowing across this country and the people are "forcefully" demanding for such regulatory labeling to which Government has to bow eventually. Here is the latest on this issue.

"Thousands of products in the typical American grocery store, from cereals to corn chips, contain genetically modified ingredients. But the average shopper wouldn't know it from their labels. Many companies in the food and biotechnology industry, including Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co., want to keep it that way. But they'll have to fend off a growing push for labels on genetically modified products that's gaining traction in Washington and state capitals. At least 18 states are now considering laws that would make the labels mandatory, including Illinois and California, the country's biggest market. Earlier this year, pro-labeling advocates marched from New York to Washington. Late last fall, about 500 groups, including some of the country's biggest consumer organizations, banded together as the Just Label It campaign. Also last fall, the Washington-based Center for Food Safety filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, calling for the agency to require labels. As of this week, the petition had 850,000 signatures of support, the most ever for a federal food petition. "Fifty countries have mandatory labeling. We're one of the only developed countries that doesn't. GMOs are labeled in China, Russia. Why would consumers in those countries have this information and we not have it here?" said Megan Westgate, executive director of the the Non-GMO Project, a group that verifies and labels products as free of genetically altered ingredients. "It feels like we're at this tipping point where a lot more Americans are concerned about this."

Is it not funny that the very same government insists on labeling a product treated with gamma radiation though more than 65 countries have cleared food irradiation process as safe beyond any shadow of doubt? Double standards? Of course! If there were a lobby for irradiation process as powerful as that advocating GM technology for producing foods, Government would not have made labeling mandatory for irradiated foods. While debating on this issue, the views of the protagonists who believe that GM technology only can achieve quantum jump in food production in coming years should not be unilaterally shunned and with the present pace of scientific development there may be a possibility that the technology may gain universal acceptance in future. Till such time citizens must be given the choice to buy or not to buy GM foods through clear labeling.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com