Scientists from the Weizmann Institute and the U.S. created a tool to analyze the environmental costs of agriculture, with the goal of determining which types of animal-based food one should eat, environmentally speaking. In the most comprehensive study of its kind, they came up with answers both expected and surprising.
A paper co-written by an Indiana University researcher describes how households can reduce water use substantially by simple actions such as installing more efficient appliances and changing day-to-day habits.
Iowa State University researchers are targeting leafy greens in an effort to protect older adults from foodborne illnesses. Leafy greens are a common source of contamination and older adults are often most susceptible to severe illness or death.
From the grocery aisle to the TV dial, health and safety claims about foods and their ingredients are dominating conversation, often scaring consumers away from many products and ingredients. The new Cornell University study, “Ingredient-based food fears and avoidance: antecedents and antidotes” published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, investigated food fears – why people have them and what can be done to correct misconceptions.
Scientists have identified a potential Achilles’ heel for Salmonella – the bacteria’s reliance on a single food source to remain fit in the inflamed intestine.
“A dropped item is immediately contaminated and can’t really be sanitized,” said Jorge Parada, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, medical director of the Infection Prevention and Control Program at Loyola University Health System. “When it comes to folklore, the ‘five-second rule’ should be replaced with ‘When in doubt, throw it out.’ ”
New and improved manufacturing technologies, as well as a greater focus on the individual steps of the production process, are helping to enhance spice safety in the U.S. and throughout the world, according to a June 22 panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® in New Orleans.
A Kansas State University food safety specialist says there are distinct symptoms for food poisoning and reporting it to your doctor is an important step in improving food safety.
Kansas State University diagnosticians are helping the cattle industry save millions of dollars each year by developing earlier and accurate detection of E. coli.
A Ph.D. student from Missouri University of Science and Technology is screening Missouri drinking water for common and emerging water contaminants and seeking new technologies to improve drinking water quality.
Texas Tech food expert Mindy Brashears discusses current food supply issues, prices.
K-State Olathe food safety specialist advises on how to give your holiday guests some tasty food, without food poisoning.
Accounting for immunity can strengthen disease identification and management.
A professor at Clarkson University is pioneering a new purification process that, if successful, could help millions of people without access to clean water quickly and efficiently purify water to make it safe for drinking and cooking.
Researchers at Kansas State University in Olathe have found that four out of 10 bulk spices purchased in the Kansas City metro area contain contaminants that include heavy metals, mycotoxins and/or bacteria. Four bulk spices typically associated with salmonella contamination included black pepper, thyme, oregano and turmeric. Cooking bulk spices to at least 160 degrees can kill the bacteria; however, putting bulk spices on already prepared foods could contaminate the foods and lead to foodborne illness.
Dr. Scott Weese will present on how pet food and treat manufacturing practices play a major role in pathogen control for pets.
Just in time for grilling season, the Home Food Safety program – a collaboration between the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and ConAgra Foods – offers healthful grilling advice.
At the elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 anticipated by around 2050, crops that provide a large share of the global population with most of their dietary zinc and iron will have significantly reduced concentrations of those nutrients, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Given that an estimated two billion people suffer from zinc and iron deficiencies, resulting in a loss of 63 million life years annually from malnutrition, the reduction in these nutrients represents the most significant health threat ever shown to be associated with climate change.
Technology capable of sampling water systems to find indicators of fecal matter contamination that are thousandths and even millionths of times smaller than those found by conventional methods is being developed by a team of researchers at Texas A&M University.
There is nothing better on a hot, summer day than a refreshing dip in a community pool, water park, lake or ocean. However, bacteria and parasites can lurk in all kinds of water and put a real damper on summertime fun unless people practice a few, simple safety tips.
A group of McMaster researchers has solved the problem of cumbersome, painfully slow water-testing by turning the process upside-down. They have created a way to take the lab to the water, putting potentially life-saving technology into a tiny pill.
In the United States, approximately 179 million cases of acute diarrhea occur each year, and most of those cases are entirely preventable, a researcher from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) concluded in a New England Journal of Medicine review article.
The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is pleased to announce that Trace One Inc. has signed on as one of the sponsors of IFT’s Global Food Traceability Center. They will join 16 other partners who all share a common objective to strengthen the global food supply and increase business efficiencies through the use of sound traceability practices.
Researchers in the Center for Immunity and Inflammation at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School describe a novel hybrid invasion pathway that starts with the host cell eating the Toxoplasma parasite which, in turn, escapes to form its own vacuolar niche. This study has been published by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Newly published research shows that the use of antibacterial soaps can reduce the spread of harmful bacteria – that often leads to foodborne illness – more effectively than using non-antibacterial soaps. “This research provides strong evidence that antibacterial soaps are significantly more effective than non-antibacterial soaps in reducing Shigella on the hands and its subsequent transfer to ready-to-eat foods,” the researchers wrote in the Journal of Food Protection.
A new expert panel report on food security in Northern Canada, has found that food insecurity among northern Aboriginal peoples requires urgent attention in order to mitigate impacts on health and well-being.
Corralling desperados with names like bacillus and paenibacillus will require ingenuity and an arsenal of weapons. These outlaws aren’t rustling cattle—they’re making milk sour and cheese soft and crumbly. For more than a century, milk has been heated to kill any bacteria or pathogens that can affect consumer health and shorten the shelf life of the product. However, microbes-- known as thermoduric--can survive pasteurization, according to South Dakota State University dairy science professor Sanjeev Anand. The Agricultural Experiment Station researcher has begun developing ways to combat heat-resistant microorganisms, a major challenge for the world’s dairy industry. His work is also supported by the Dairy Research Institute and the Midwest Dairy Food Research Center.
The complexities and implications of the chemical spill into West Virginia‘s Elk River keep growing, according to a study led by Virginia Tech Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Andrea Dietrich.
A new treatment, using microparticles made from chitosan, could help dairy cattle stave off uterine diseases and eventually could help improve food safety for humans.
Virginia Tech engineers sprung into action when more than 10,000 gallons of a chemical mixture leaked from a storage tank near Charleston, W.Va., and entered a river upstream of a water-treatment plant in January.
Wastewater used to irrigate farmers' fields may present public health risks to children and others.
Shale, the source of the United States’ current natural gas boom, could help solve another energy problem: what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The unique properties of the sedimentary rock and related clay-rich rocks make it ideal for storing the potentially dangerous spent fuel for millennia, according to a geologist studying possible storage sites. He presented his research today at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Sunlight plus a common titanium pigment might be the secret recipe for ridding pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other potentially harmful pollutants from drinking water. Scientists reported today at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that they have combined several high-tech components to make an easy-to-use water purifier that could work with the world’s most basic form of energy, sunlight, in a boon for water purification in rural areas or developing countries.
More than eight tons a month. That’s how much organic material in the form of spent coffee grounds the Austin-based Ground to Ground program diverts from area landfills and makes available to people in the community as compost.
Through a five-year FDA grant for nearly $500,000, senior microbiologist Seema Das and a team of South Dakota researchers will determine whether a test that detects salmonella in human food can do the same in raw pet food. The first year the test will be validated, and then either adjustments or expansion of the testing will be done in subsequent years. The work will involve multi-lab validation with collaborators at Iowa State, Texas A & M, the University of Minnesota and the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
Nobel Laureate Sir John B. Gurdon, DPhil, DSc, FRS, will kick off the largest gathering of toxicologists in the world at the Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. The meeting from March 23-27, 2014, will feature almost 170 scientific sessions and 2,900 abstracts.
Recent developments across the globe have put an increasing focus on the traceability of foods. Complicated supply chains of hundreds of ingredients that are used to make a food product make food product tracing a daunting task. In an effort to better protect public health from foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls, governments across the world are in the process of implementing new regulations around food traceability.
Although levels of furan—a carcinogen resulting from heat treatment techniques, such as canning and jarring—are far below of what would cause harmful effect as determined by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), a team of food scientists from Technische University Berlin found that treatment of baby food puree with high pressure thermal sterilization (HPTS) instead of conventional thermal processing showed a reduction of furan. The study is in the current issue of Journal of Food Science published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT).
Lone star tick bites are likely the cause of thousands of cases of severe red meat allergies that are plaguing patients in Southeastern states including Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia and spreading up the Eastern Seaboard along with the deer population.
A recent nationwide online survey of U.S. consumers by Kansas State University found that freshness and safety were the most important values consumers placed on buying popular livestock products, including milk, ground beef, beef steak and chicken breast. Consumers felt environmental impact, animal welfare, origin and convenience were least important when making food purchasing decisions.
• Domoic acid accumulates in seafood and is toxic to the brain • The toxin damages kidneys at concentrations that are 100 times lower than what causes neurological effects.
Sandia National Laboratories is developing computer models that show how radioactive waste interacts with soil and sediments, shedding light on waste disposal and how to keep contamination away from drinking water.
The scientists are trying to understand how populations of microorganisms regulate emissions of nitrous oxide from streams and rivers.
The majority of consumers that eat or buy organic products do not want synthetic antimicrobials or antioxidants added to their foods and prefer a “clean label”. A study in the Journal of Food Science published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) showed that extracts from pecan shells may be effective at protecting meats, such as chicken from listeria growth.
Today, December 12, JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, has published an environmental research technique that could turn the age-old task of watering crops into an exact science.
UF researchers say salmonella is more likely to spread on tomatoes only with certain tomato types and drier weather, and that's a key to curbing produce-associated outbreaks.
The October online survey reached 510 Florida residents, all 18 or older.
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