Food safety in the food market is one of the most important public health issues since food has become a major pathway for human exposure to foodborne illnesses due to the globalization of the world’s food trade. Such diseases affect billions of people of every age, race, gender, and income worldwide who are at risk of unsafe food. It has been estimated that 600 million people worldwide fall ill after eating contaminated food, and 420,000 die every year. The most vulnerable population groups are the elderly, people with chronic diseases having a weak immune system and children. The current blog post touches upon those substances that can contaminate food and thus cause foodborne illness, food hygiene and how this is related to food contamination, how science and legislation can contribute to attenuating the issue, as well as novel food packaging materials that can also contribute to enhanced food safety.
One of the primary reasons food safety constitutes such a vast public health issue is because the global dimensions of food supply chains call for increased speed and range of product distribution, which nowadays crosses multiple national borders. This globalization has resulted in an increasingly complex and longer global food chain. It has triggered the intensification and industrialization of agriculture and animal production to meet the increasing demand for food, creating challenges for food safety.
Due to the large number of parties involved in this long food distribution chain, food can become contaminated in one country and cause health problems in another. However, food safety issues are more common in developing than in developed countries where personal hygiene and sanitation are poor, environmental conditions are unsatisfactory, water supplies are insufficient, and water quality is poor. Moreover, food safety legislation in these countries is still weak, meaning food sellers may not comply with food hygiene and safety requirements or standards.
Food safety is important because it supports the national economy, trade, and tourism, contributes to nutrition security, and underpins sustainable development. However, for business reasons, the food industry may prioritize continuous profit over the health of the general population. As a result, foods in the international market may be fraudulently contaminated by various parties, such as manufacturers, co-packers, distributors, and others involved in national or international trade, thus exposing people to contamination agents entering at many points along the food distribution chain.
In broad terms, food safety protects the food supply chain from introducing, growing, or surviving hazardous agents, such as harmful bacteria, parasites, chemical substances, etc. The origin of food hazards is a chain that commences at the source (food production), continues with food processing, packaging, transportation, and storage, and ends with the consumer.
Food contamination agents
The food supply chain spans from farm to table and is a multi-step process that encompasses production, processing, preservation, storage, packaging, transportation, and consumption. As a result, food contamination can occur at various stages of the process.
Food contaminated with hazardous agents can cause more than 200 diseases ranging from diarrhea to cancer. Contaminated food is one of the most common causes of gastrointestinal illness, especially diarrheal diseases, which are the most common illnesses caused by consuming contaminated food. These poisonings are responsible for the deaths of about 3 million children a year, mostly in underdeveloped regions.
Although many food hazards exist, including chemical contamination (heavy metals, veterinary residues, pesticides, etc.), environmental contamination (e.g., environmental organic contaminants), mislabelling and selling expired foods, and genetically modified foods (GMOs), microbial contamination is the most common in the food market.
- Microbial contamination
Microbial contamination of foods may arise due to failure to apply food safety strategies in every stage of the food supply chain, from bad food handling practices, poor production processes, and poor agricultural practices to poor transportation systems, poor marketing practices, and poor sanitation.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, 9.4 million foodborne illnesses are caused by different bacterial species, viruses, and fungi. The most commonly encountered microbial pathogens and toxins include bacteria such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Escherichia coli, as well as mycotoxins, especially aflatoxins. Symptoms associated with such infections include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
Foods through the consumption of which such poisonings may arise include eggs and raw or undercooked poultry (Salmonella), raw milk, raw or undercooked poultry, and water (Campylobacter), undercooked meat, unpasteurized milk, and fresh fruits and vegetables (Escherichia coli).
Salmonellosis, in particular, is the most high-incidence foodborne infection of the gastrointestinal tract. It is characterized by digestive system inflammation (gastroenteritis) accompanied by nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and bloody diarrhea. It can also be presented with headache, fever, and myalgia. The continuous loss of body fluids due to vomiting and diarrhea may result in dehydration. Although salmonellosis is a self-limiting illness that ceases in around a week, deaths have been recorded, especially in vulnerable population groups such as children, the elderly, and immunosuppressed individuals.
Viruses such as norovirus infections are another common source of microbial contamination. Norovirus typically spreads through leafy vegetables. Symptoms include nausea, explosive vomiting, watery diarrhea, and abdominal pain.
Finally, food handlers infected with the Hepatitis A virus are a common source of microbial contamination. The virus typically spreads through raw or undercooked shellfish these workers may have handled.
- Chemical contamination
Contamination of foods with hazardous chemicals is a significant public health concern associated with the food market. Chemical contamination of foods is responsible for millions of poisoning cases, thousands of hospitalizations, and deaths each year.
Chemicals are naturally occurring toxins (e.g., marine biotoxins, poisonous mushrooms), heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and copper), and pesticide residues.
Chemical contamination can also arise through direct food contact with packaging materials, through which harmful substances may migrate into the food and food additives (colorants and preservatives). A food additive is any chemical substance not normally consumed as food by itself and not normally used as a typical ingredient but added intentionally to it for a technological purpose in production. Such purposes may include the maintenance of a food’s nutritional quality, for example, by preventing the degradation of vitamins, essential amino acids, and unsaturated fats, the extension of a product’s shelf life, as well as the maintenance and improvement of a product’s sensory properties, such as texture, consistency, taste, flavor, and color.
The main problem with food additives arises from their misuse, which means using more than the maximum allowable concentration of unapproved substances or blending permitted and non-permitted substances, a fraud practice called adulteration. Hence, food adulteration is another important source of food safety issues in the food market. It aims to decrease food quality by removing genuine nutritious ingredients and intentionally adding harmful agents. These agents have a wide range of severe effects on the health of consumers, including cancer.
- Environmental contamination
A clean environment results in clean food. However, environmental pollution has become one of the major problems affecting food safety and thus affecting human health.
Environmental contaminants are impurities either introduced by humans or naturally occurring in water, air, or soil. They can be caused by inadequate recycling, waste disposal equipment, and industrial processes, which lead to the accumulation of spoiled and contaminated food.
Environmental pollutants include persistent organic pollutants (POPs), dioxins, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Once these hazardous substances are introduced into the environment, they can enter the food chain at multiple points and accumulate in the human organism. Dioxins, in particular, are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones, and cause cancer.
- Mislabeling and expired foods
Mislabeling of food products is another significant public health risk associated with food safety in the food market. It includes false advertising, deliberately or accidentally leaving out ingredients, not listing potential health effects, and claiming a food contains ingredients that it does not to deceive the consumer for financial gain.
Mislabeling has increased as different parties, such as manufacturers, co-packers, distributors, and others along the distribution chain, are involved in national and international trade. Mislabeling leads to cross-contamination, poor food quality, and thus adverse effects on human health.
On the other hand, selling foods past their use is most common in less developed countries and rural markets. It can pose major threats to consumers since microorganism growth in expired foods is very common. Most of these microorganisms are pathogenic; some produce toxic substances as they develop, resulting in foodborne illnesses.
Food hygiene
Poor food hygiene is one of the most important ways food contamination with the agents mentioned above may occur.
Food hygiene refers to the conditions and measures necessary to ensure food safety from production to consumption. Poor personal hygiene practices of food handlers along the food chain, from slaughtering to harvesting, processing, storage, distribution, transportation, and preparation, can expose consumers to foodborne infections.
On the other hand, proper food hygiene practices can prevent most foodborne diseases, so they should be religiously followed. They focus on cleanliness (e.g., thorough hand washing), separating raw meat from other raw/cooked foods, cooking at the correct temperatures, and storing foods before and after cooking.
Food hygiene has become a significant concern over the last decades due to the advent of ready-to-eat products. These are pre-cleaned, pre-cooked, packaged, and ready-to-consume products consumed without prior preparation or cooking and without further heating, increasing the risk of contamination.
Consequently, adequate food safety training in proper food hygiene practices for food handlers has become more crucial than ever now that such products have flooded the food market.
Food safety training on proper food hygiene practices is captured in the four formal processes described below.
- Good manufacturing practices (GMP) are actions applied to food production based on four points: exclusion, removal of undesirable and foreign agents, inhibition, and destruction of unwanted pathogens.
- Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs) are written procedures developed and implemented in a facility to prevent direct contamination or adulteration of products. They include a complete description of the specific activities required to maintain equipment free of pathogens, preventing the contamination of food that comes in contact with it.
- Good Hygiene Practices (GHPs) are prerequisite measures upon which other food safety and quality management systems are built. They include an exhaustive list of measures, including staff personal hygiene and training.
- Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a systematic set of actions used to control food production to ensure food safety and prevent food-related changes. The system is based on using control practices in given production steps where there is a greater probability of health hazards.
Legal demarcation of food safety
Although a safe food supply is essential because of the significant health and economic burdens, food safety issues have not waned in the 21st century. Simultaneously, as the standard of living improves, consumers demand the quality and safety of products more and more because food is necessary to sustain life. Therefore, new laws and regulations consisting of effective national food control systems must be enacted periodically to ensure a continuing supply of safe food products for people’s health and wellness. One of the most popular government organizations responsible for legally protecting public health and safety against food hazards is the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Once the laws are enacted, countries must implement and enforce risk-based food control strategies, such as regular monitoring and surveillance. Generally, periodic food monitoring provides a 95% assurance that contaminants of any targeted food have been eliminated. Furthermore, food surveillance is used to investigate and control the movement of potentially contaminated products. Through these processes, compliance by the entire food industry, including food industries, labeling, packaging, transportation, distribution, and retail sales, can be ensured.
Science and food safety
It is worth mentioning that science is an essential prerequisite for the equitable enforcement of food safety laws. It must be the basis for setting the regulations and protocols to eventually eliminate unsafe foods. For example, risk assessment and food analysis are scientific processes geared toward that goal.
Food analysis predominantly evaluates food ingredients and food quality in terms of their organoleptic properties and nutritional value. It also involves food safety control performed through analytical technologies to detect microbial toxins, allergens, pathogens, pesticides, etc.
Standard approaches to food analysis involve culture-based methods, biochemical methods, nucleic-acid-based methods (e.g., polymerase chain reaction, PCR), and immunological-based methods (e.g., enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, ELISA) that take weeks and require substantial biochemical analysis or may be inadequate in detecting some contaminants.
As a result, the two most preferred food analysis methods for the detection and quantification of contaminants are Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS).
Both techniques have high sensitivity, speed, and throughput, making food analysis easier and diminishing the potential for foodborne diseases.
Therefore, it’s becoming evident that a secure food supply depends on both science and equitable law enforcement in terms of technological advances and new regulations, respectively.
Food packaging and food safety
As already mentioned, globalization has made it easier for foodborne pathogens to be transmitted because many food products are distributed across borders. Therefore, good systems must be developed to detect, remove, and control the risks caused by the presence of hazardous substances.
One of these systems is food packaging, an integral component of the global food supply chain. It protects food from physical damage, chemical contaminants, and microbes and helps maintain food quality and safety during transport and storage.
Modern food packaging involves polymeric materials tailored to control food exposure to light, oxygen, and moisture. Their benefits include being lightweight, economical, reusable, recyclable, and resistant to chemical and physical damage.
However, since the challenges in food safety are getting bigger as the food chain expands, there has been a great effort to develop innovative food packaging technologies and materials with improved properties while decreasing the use of raw materials, minimizing waste generation, and lowering costs.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of innovative hybrid porous materials developed in the food packaging industry to remove contaminants from production sources, including water, soil, etc. inputs, including animal feed, pesticides, etc., and the final food product through absorption and/or degradation. They also improve food preservation by extending food’s shelf life, thus allowing for safer food distribution across larger distances.
Furthermore, they can detect and monitor contaminants in food products and deceptively labeled food products.
Lastly, MOFs are also considered a more environmentally friendly solution to current packaging.
However, much work still needs to be done, especially regarding the toxicity of MOFs, to eventually improve food safety.
In summary, food safety is one of the biggest concerns faced worldwide. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, primarily affecting infants, young children, older people, and individuals already suffering from chronic diseases. Since food supply chains cross multiple national and regional borders, responsibility and collaboration between governments, food producers, handlers, distributors, vendors, and consumers will ultimately ensure food safety for everyone.
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