Bacteriophages: New Tools for Safer Food?

The recent FDA approval of Listeria-specific bacteriophage preparations for food preservation has opened the door to new applications of these natural bacterial killers. Bacteriophages are viruses that only infect and lyse bacterial cells and are harmless to mammalians. There is now a renewed interest to use the ability of these viruses to kill pathogenic bacteria for biotechnological purposes. We will describe the biology of bacteriophages, the concept of ,,phage therapy' and recent applications of phages as biocontrol agents with emphasis on applications for food safety.

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Zusammenfassung: Die amerikanische Zulassungsbeh?rde FDA (Food and Drug Agency) hat kürzlich die Verwendung von Bakteriophagenpr?paraten zur Bek?mpfung von Listeria monocytogenes in Lebensmitteln erlaubt. Bakteriophagen (Phagen) sind Viren, die spezifi sch Bakterien t?ten. Für Zellen h?herer Lebewesen sind diese Viren ungef?hrlich. Die Listeria-Phagenpr?parate zeigen die potentielle biotechnologische Nutzung solcher Viren, die Sicherheit von Lebensmitteln durch eine gezielte Bek?mpfung eines pathogenen Keims zu erh?hen. In dieser übersichtsarbeit werden verschiedene Anwendungsbereiche von Phagen in der Lebensmittelproduktion vorgestellt, die sich zurzeit noch weitgehend im experimentellen Stadium befi nden. Die Applikation von Phagen an lebenden Tieren (,,preharvest"), um die Keimzahl eines pathogenen Bakteriums zu reduzieren, ist als Phagentherapie bekannt. Ihre Anwendung am Lebensmittel (,,postharvest") wird als Biokontrolle bezeichnet. Der sichere Gebrauch von Phagen erfordert Kenntnisse über ihre Biologie; daraus leiten sich spezielle Anforderungen an Pr?parate ab, die in der Lebensmittelproduktion verwendet werden sollen.

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Received: March 19, 2007     

Bottom-up Food: Making Rāmen a Gourmet Food in Tokyo

This article introduces the Japanese concept of kodawari—meaning obession and a detailed personal aesthetic—as an analytical category to think about the process by which everyday foods are valorized as gourmet. I show that the kodawari of chefs and consumers influence each other and combine to create an aesthetic appreciation of rāmen noodles, elevating it from its inexpensive background to an object of gourmet desire in contemporary Japan. Kodawari is an individual experience, and chefs develop their own techniques to make their rāmen bowls stand out. Likewise, consumers learn to appreciate the personal touches of chefs and shops, while at the same time developing their own complex sensorial appreciation for rāmen from their individual vantage point. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in rāmen shops in Tokyo with chefs and aficionados, this article shows how their efforts result in the valorization of an everyday food item.     

Mitigating Nutrition and Health Deficiencies in Older Adults: A Role for Food Innovation?

The aim of this review is to describe the factors contributing to diminished food intake, resulting in nutritional deficiencies and associated health conditions in older adults and proposes food innovation strategies to mitigate these. Research has provided convincing evidence of a link between healthy eating patterns and healthy aging. There is a need to target new food product development (NPD) with functional health benefits specifically designed to address the particular food‐related needs of older consumers. When developing foods for older adults, consideration should be given to the increased requirements for specific macro‐ and micronutrients, especially protein, calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B. Changes in chemosensory acuity, chewing difficulties, and reduced or poor swallowing ability should also be considered. To compensate for the diminished appetite and reduced intake, foods should be energy dense, nutritionally adequate, and, most importantly, palatable, when targeting this cohort. This paper describes the potential of new food product development to facilitate dietary modification and address health deficiencies in older adults.     

Immunochemical Detection Methods for Gluten in Food Products: Where Do We Go from Here?

Accurate and reliable quantification methods for gluten in food are necessary to ensure proper product labeling and thus safeguard the gluten sensitive consumer against exposure. Immunochemical detection is the method of choice, as it is sensitive, rapid and relatively easy to use. Although a wide range of detection kits are commercially available, there are still many difficulties in gluten detection that have not yet been overcome. This review gives an overview of the currently commercially available immunochemical detection methods, and discusses the problems that still exist in gluten detection in food. The largest problems are encountered in the extraction of gluten from food matrices, the choice of epitopes targeted by the detection method, and the use of a standardized reference material. By comparing the available techniques with the unmet needs in gluten detection, the possible benefit of a new multiplex immunoassay is investigated. This detection method would allow for the detection and quantification of multiple harmful gluten peptides at once and would, therefore, be a logical advancement in gluten detection in food.     

Taqman PCR-based Methods for Rapid Detection o＇ Salmonella in Pet Food

[Objective] To establish a Taqman real-time PCR for detection of Salmonella in pet food. [Method] A pair of primers and a probe were designed based on published...     

High-resolution Orbitrap™-based mass spectrometry for rapid detection of peanuts in nuts

Peanut represents one of the most harmful allergenic foods capable of triggering severe and sometimes lethal reactions in allergic consumers upon ingestion of even small amounts. Several proteins capable of inducing allergic reactions that have been recognised by patients’ IgE antibodies have been identified from this nut source. Methods mainly based on ELISA assays have been developed in order to detect peanuts in several food commodities. In addition LC-MS/MS methods based on different mass analysers have also been devised for tracing peanut contamination in different foods achieving low limits of detection. The applicability of a benchtop high-resolution Exactive? mass spectrometer has never been investigated for the rapid screening of peanut contamination in complex food matrices like mixtures of nuts. We report in this paper the design of suitable peanut markers and the development of an high-resolution Orbitrap? mass spectrometer-based method for peanut detection in a mixture of nuts species. With this aim, different types of samples were prepared: (1) nuts-based powder made up of a mixture of hazelnuts, pistachios, almonds and walnuts; and (2) nuts powder fortified with peanuts. Different levels of fortifications were produced and the applicability of the method was tested. Finally, a subset of six peptides fulfilling specific analytical requirements was chosen to check the suitability of the method tailored to the detection of peanuts in nuts-based products, and two of them, peptides VYD and WLG, were selected as quantitative markers. The method proved to be a suitable screening tool to assess the presence of traces of peanuts in other tree nuts with a limit of detection as low as 4 µg of peanuts proteins or 26 µg of peanuts in 1 g of matrix.     

Role of Disinfection in Food Industry

In industrialized countries, the epidemiology of infec- tious diseases with indirect transmission through water and foodstuffs has undergone considerable changes over the past decades with the almost total disappearance of some traditional pathogen microo…     

Food irradiation: The “reluctant” food additive for all agendas

Abstract

From its early discovery period around the turn of the century to the mid‐1950s, food irradiation research and development and patenting proceeded quietly in the centers and laboratories of Europe, North America, the USSR and elsewhere, essentially unbeknownst to the general public. The development caught the attention of the news media, food faddists, and others concerned about chemicals added to foods and, ultimately, a sufficient number of Congressmen in the United States during the 1957–58 period to cause the process to be included as a food additive in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This action contributed to the cancellation of a planned joint U.S. government‐industry food irradiator, which was to be the first such semi‐industrial scale facility. The action also contributed to what has become a pattern of disruptions and setbacks instead of what might have been the orderly progression of the new food process from laboratory research, development, and wholesomeness testing to pre industrial pilot scale evaluation of the technical and economic feasibility of promising applications, to dispassionate and objective regulatory evaluation of safety and efficacy through to regulatory clearance and prudent industrialization according to sound business practices. Instead, at critical times in its protracted and tortuous passage from being a novel curiosity to becoming merely another bona fide, legitimate food processing/preservation/treatment method, it has had the burden of being a “reluctant food additive for all agendas” thrust upon it by types ranging from overzealous promoters to the most strident and persistent hard‐core opponents, the latter largely drawn together from the “health/natural” food, “organic” farming/gardening, environmentalist, and antinuclear everything persuasions. Meanwhile, also essentially unbeknownst to the general public, a nonfood radiation processing industry has been steadily growing and flourishing over the last quarter century, ironically safely and effectively employing essentially the same technology/process (e.g., to sterilize health care and related products to prevent infections) that becomes so exploited and misrepresented, and therefore emotion‐arousing and controversial, when associated with food. It cannot be overemphasized that those who choose to ignore the overwhelming weight of an unprecedented body of scientific data, information, and knowledgeable, competent, objective professional judgment to the contrary so as to continue to loosely speculate about the safety/whole‐someness of irradiated foods in an uncompromisingly extreme, negatively biased manner are obliged to produce plausible mechanism(s) whereby stable compounds capable of exerting toxicological manifestations in consumers, or other public health‐threatening effects, might be brought about by the radiation processing/preservation/treatment of foods according to well‐established conditions and procedures. That even the most severe, persistent antagonists are unable to do so, because such mechanisms are for all practical purposes nonexistent (i.e., scientific evidence bears out what theory would predict), is evidenced by their having to resort to intellectually bankrupt, transparently fabricated smear campaigns to serve their true agendas at the expense of the process and the public that they purport to defend and protect.     

Future perspectives in Orbitrap™-high-resolution mass spectrometry in food analysis: a review

A literature search from 2007 to 2014 was conducted to identify publications where principally LC-Orbitrap?-high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has been employed in food analysis. Of a total of 212 relevant references, only 22 papers were from 2007–10, but in subsequent years there has been a steady growth in publications with 38–55 relevant papers being published each year from 2011 to 2014. In the food safety area, over 50% of the published papers were equally divided between pesticides, veterinary drug residues and natural toxins (including mycotoxins) focused primarily on multi-analyte target analysis. LC-Orbitrap-HRMS was also found to be increasingly important for the analysis of bioactive substances, principally phenolic compounds in foods. A number of studies reported for the first time the identification of new fungal metabolites, predominantly various conjugated forms of known mycotoxins. Novel process contaminants were also identified by LC-Orbitrap-HRMS, as were various substances used for food adulteration and bioactive substances in herbal products and dietary supplements. Untargeted analysis is seen as a major future trend where HRMS plays a significant role. Retrospective analysis of scanned high-resolution mass spectra in conjunction with relevant databases can provide new insights. Metabolomics is also being increasingly used where foods are being profiled through fingerprinting using HRMS. All evidence points towards future growth in the number of applications of HRMS in food safety and quality, as the power of this technique gains wider recognition.     

A Novel Cationic Surfactant-Assisted Switchable Solvent-Based Dispersive Liquid–Liquid Microextraction for Determination for Orange II in Food Samples

In this research, a new and green procedure based on the cationic surfactant-assisted switchable solvent-based dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (CS-SS-DLLME) with UV-vis spectrophotometry was used for the extraction and determination of the Orange II dye in food samples. The main feature of the switchable solvent is the simple and reversible conversion of polarity protonated triethylammonium carbonate (P-TEA-C, ionic) to triethylamine (TEA, nonionic) by adding NaOH. This extraction method is based on hydrophilicity switchable solvent and ion pair effect of cationic surfactant. Simplicity, high-performance extraction, rapidity of the process, increase of stability, and reduction of the extractive phase volatility are other advantages of the proposed method. The parameters including the extraction and preconcentration of Orange II were studied and optimized. Under optimal conditions, the calibration curve was linear within the range of 2–450 μg/L and the detection limit was 0.9 μg/L and the relative standard deviation (RSD) for 80 μg/L of Orange II was 1.68%. This developed method was used successfully for the determination of Orange II in food samples.     

Practicing Food Anxiety: Making Australian Mothers Responsible for Their Families’ Dietary Decisions

Concerns about the relationship between diet, weight, and health find widespread expression in the media and are accompanied by significant individual anxiety and responsibilization. However, these pertain especially to mothers, who undertake the bulk of domestic labor involved in managing their families’ health and wellbeing. This article employs the concept of anxiety as social practice to explore the process whereby mothers are made accountable for their families’ dietary decisions. Drawing on data from an Australian study that explored the impact of discourses of childhood obesity prevention on mothers, the article argues that mothers’ engagements with this value-laden discourse are complex and ambiguous, involving varying degrees of self-ascribed responsibility and blame for children's weight and diets. We conclude by drawing attention to the value of viewing food anxiety as social practice, in highlighting issues that are largely invisible in both official discourses and scholarly accounts of childhood obesity prevention.     

Data Fusion for Food Authentication: Fresh/Frozen–Thawed Discrimination in West African Goatfish (Pseudupeneus prayensis) Fillets

The substitution of fresh fish with frozen–thawed fish is a typical fraud that not only damages consumers from an economical point of view, but also causes safety issues. Furthermore, fish authentication is important for correct product labeling, as promoted by recent regulatory actions. In this paper, we present the results of the authentication of fresh west African goatfish (Pseudupeneus prayensis) fillets using different analytical technologies, namely a portable visible/near-infrared spectrometer, a compact digital camera, and a texture analyzer. First, the classification performance of the abovementioned analytical technologies is evaluated and compared. Then, it is shown how the fusion of different technologies can be effectively used to improve the classification accuracy. Particularly, spectra and color features extracted from digital images returned a classification accuracy of 100 and 98.5 %, respectively, when considered separately. However, the classification accuracy fell to 80 % when considering measurements taken with a 24-h delay. Data fusion, instead, allowed a classification accuracy of 100 % also after 24 h. Hence, the combination of a spectrometer and a digital camera is very promising for cost-effective on-line/at-line applications, as both sensors are rapid, non-invasive, and do not require sample preparation. Furthermore, since more than 200 samples were collected over a prolonged period of time (1 year), the classification models encompassed some sources of variability (seasonality effects and size) that are not usually accounted for in similar studies.     

Towards a Comprehensive Validation of ELISA Kits for Food Allergens: Case 1—Egg

There are several enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits in the market that have been proven to be useful for the determination of egg in foods. However, inconsistent results that are obtained when different kits are used make the selection of one kit over another very difficult. Two different approaches were used to help understand why results vary among kits. Different kits were used to analyze spiked egg material [NIST reference material (RM) 8445] in wheat flour (raw ingredients) and cookies containing egg as an ingredient baked for different periods of time (processed food). These results were compared with immunoblotting using conjugated antibodies from the commercial kits to determine the antibody specificity and sample extraction efficiency. ELISA results can be difficult to compare because reporting units differ among kits. Results from both ELISA and immunoblotting are in agreement regarding the decreased detection of proteins in baked cookie extracts. Moreover, immunoblotting showed that this reduction is due to reduced protein content in these extracts. However, a properly selected extraction solution may help improve the solubility of certain egg proteins in processed foods. Harmonization of the reporting unit system along with the use of a common reference material is recommended as the path forward in the standardization of detection methods for food allergens. This would assist the end user in making an informed decision regarding the selection of the most appropriate kit for his or her purpose.     

Food allergy,a summary of eight cases in the UK criminal and civil courts: effective last resort for vulnerable consumers?

Food allergy has a forensic context. The authors describe eight cases in the UK courts involving fatalities, personal injury or criminal non‐compliance with food law from mainly ‘grey’ literature sources. The potentially severe consequences for people with food allergy of contraventions of labelling law have led to enforcement action up to criminal prosecution for what might otherwise be regarded as ‘trivial’ non‐compliance. The authors suggest there should be central collation of such cases. Non‐compliances should be followed up in a more rapid and robust manner. Evidence of fraud in the catering supply chain supports recent calls for zero tolerance of food fraud. Businesses must guard against gaps in allergen management, for which there are readily available sources of training and guidance, but also against fraudulent substitution in the supply chain, about which training and guidance should be developed. New allergen labelling legislation and case law appear to place responsibility on food businesses even for the forensically problematic area of allergen cross‐contamination. The courts can be an effective last resort for vulnerable consumers; however, there is evidence of knowledge and skill gaps in both the investigation and prosecution of potentially serious incidents of food allergen mismanagement and mislabelling. Thorough investigation of food allergy deaths is required with a tenacious and skilled approach, including early realisation that samples of the food and/or stomach contents from a post mortem examination should be retained and analysed. The supply chain must be rigorously examined to find out where adulteration or contamination with the fatal allergen occurred. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry