Archive for the ‘FSIS’ Category

The Office of Food Safety oversees the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the agency within USDA responsible for ensuring the safety, wholesomeness, and correct labeling and packaging of meat, poultry, and egg products. FSIS operates under the authority of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act. FSIS sets standards for food safety and inspects and regulates all raw and processed meat and poultry products, and egg products sold in interstate commerce, including imported products. FSIS has implemented a strategy for change to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness attributable to meat, poultry, and egg products. The Office of Food Safety, headed by USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety, provides oversight of the agency.

The activities of FSIS include:

• Livestock and poultry inspection which includes processed products made from them;
• All liquid, frozen and dried egg products are inspected;
• Plant facility food safety standards are set, this includes product contents, processing procedures, packaging and labelling, and microbial and chemical adulterants;
• Analyzing products for microbial and chemical adulterants;
• Conducting risk assessments, as well as epidemiological and other scientific studies, to estimate human health outcomes associated with the consumption of meat, poultry, and egg products. These risk assessments and studies provide science-based information for risk management and communication; and
• Educating consumers about foodborne illness by way of publications, educational campaigns, and a toll-free, nationwide USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline

Animals are examined by FSIS inspectors before and after slaughter, preventing diseased animals from entering the food supply and examining carcasses for visible defects that can affect safety and quality. Inspectors also test for the presence of harmful pathogens and drug and chemical residues.

Meat and poultry products all fall under FSIS inspection and there are around 250,000 different products within this food source. This includes things such as hams, sausages, soups, stews, pizza, frozen dinners and products containing 2 percent or more cooked poultry or at least 3 percent raw meat.

As part of the inspection process, FSIS tests for the presence of pathogens and toxins such as Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcal entertoxin in ready-to-eat another processed products. FSIS continues to have a zero tolerance for these pathogens in ready-to-eat and other processed products.

Foods that are at the greatest risk of carrying foodborne illnesses must also be inspected to ensure that food safety standards are rigidly maintained. So the question is, what are the types of foods that carry the greatest risk of contamination.

Raw foods of animal origin are the most likely to be contaminated; This includes such products as raw meat and poultry, raw eggs, unpasteurized milk, and raw shellfish. Because filter-feeding shellfish strain microbes from the sea over many months, they are particularly likely to be contaminated if there are any pathogens in the seawater.

Foods that mingle the products of many individual animals, such as bulk raw milk, pooled raw eggs, or ground beef, are particularly hazardous because a pathogen present in any one of the animals may contaminate the whole batch. A single hamburger may contain meat from hundreds of animals. A single restaurant omelet may contain eggs from hundreds of chickens. A glass of raw milk may contain milk from hundreds of cows. A broiler chicken carcass can be exposed to the drippings and juices of many thousands of other birds that went through the same cold water tank after slaughter.

Fruits and vegetables consumed raw are a particular concern. Washing can decrease but not eliminate contamination, so the consumers can do little to protect themselves. Recently, a number of outbreak have been traced to fresh fruits and vegetables that were processed under less than sanitary conditions. These outbreaks show that the quality of the water used for washing and chilling the produce after it is harvested is critical. Using water that is not clean can contaminate many boxes of produce. Fresh manure used to fertilize vegetables can also contaminate them.

Alfalfa sprouts and other raw sprouts pose a particular challenge, as the conditions under which they are sprouted are ideal for growing microbes as well as sprouts, and because they are eaten without further cooking. That means that a few bacteria present on the seeds can grow to high numbers of pathogens on the sprouts.

Unpasteurized fruit juice can also be contaminated if there are pathogens in or on the fruit that is used to make it.

This actually only makes up a small part of the work that is done by government agencies to help prevent disease and health risk in the enormous food industry. There is also the task of educating the citizens on how they can play their part in preventing the introduction of illness while preparing food in their own homes, too.