Search results for "FOOD SAFETY"
showing 10 items of 208 documents
Mass Spectrometry in Food Quality and Safety
2015
Abstract In recent years, mass spectrometry has gained a wide recognition as a selective and fast technique for the analysis and assessment of a wide range of food products. The state of the art in the determination of safety and quality of food is presented to illustrate the capability of this technique for classification and grading, defect and disease detection, distribution and visualization of chemical attributes, and evaluations of overall quality of meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, and other food products. The features of mass spectrometry for each category were summarized in the aspects of the investigated quality and safety attributes, the used systems (triple quadrupole, quadrupole…
Refrigerated Fruit Juices: Quality and Safety Issues
2007
Fruit juices are an important source of bioactive compounds, but techniques used for their processing and subsequent storage may cause alterations in their contents so they do not provide the benefits expected by the consumer. In recent years consumers have increasingly sought so-called "fresh" products (like fresh products), stored in refrigeration. This has led the food industry to develop alternative processing technologies to produce foods with a minimum of nutritional, physicochemical, or organoleptic changes induced by the technologies themselves. Attention has also focused on evaluating the microbiological or toxicological risks that may be involved in applying these processes, and t…
Control of pesticide residues by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to ensure food safety.
2006
Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) has become an invaluable technique for the control of pesticide residues to ensure food safety. After an introduction about the regulations that highlights its importance to meet the official requirements on analytical performance, the different mass spectrometers used in this field of research, as well as the LC-MS interfaces and the difficulties associated with quantitative LC-MS determination, are discussed. The ability to use practical data for quantifying pesticides together with the option of obtaining structural information to identify target and non-target parent compounds and metabolites are discussed. Special attention is paid to the…
New trends in technology and identity of traditional dairy and fermented meat production processes: Preservation of typicality and hygiene
2014
Interest in ecofood tourism is strictly related to the consumption of products associated with the geographical area visited. Local products are often requested by consumers living far from the production zones (e.g. in bistro restaurants that reproduce the atmosphere of typicality). This phenomenon, if on the one hand guaranteeing the continued popularity of certain traditional foods, highlights the inherent dangers that certain types of food pose. They could spread the risks to a much wider area that they might typically inhabit. The higher the demand for certain products, the more variations of the production processes of the traditional products there will be. This is particularly evide…
Food choices and environmental responsibility – protect the Baltic Sea
2012
‘The Baltic environment, food and health: from habits to awareness – FOODWEB’ is a project that aims to raise public awareness about the links between food quality and its origin, focusing on the Baltic Sea and its surroundings. Cultivation of food for humans and related production activities can impact negatively on the Baltic Sea, and aquatic food products from the Baltic Sea may cause problems to humans as a result of toxins in the marine environment. This is a circular problem in the Baltic ecosystem. The project is a part of Central Baltic IVA Programme 2007- 2013. Finland, Estonia and Latvia take part in the Foodweb-project. The population is projected to grow in Finland and decrease …
Beyond Alternative Food Networks: Understanding Motivations to Participate in Orti Urbani in Palermo
2019
Community gardens include many benefits, and different motivations seem to underline citizens’ choices to participate. In Italy, political motivations are considered one of the main reasons for participation in community gardens (known as orti urbani). Drawing from the orti urbani experience in Palermo (the largest city in Sicily, Southern Italy), this study aims to understand the main motivations that influence citizens’ participation and to measure the effects of these motivations on fruit and vegetable consumption among participants. Findings reveal that orti urbani attract middle‐class participants who possess high amounts of cultural capital but relatively less financial capital. Among…
Virus entéricos humanos en alimentos: detección y métodos de inactivación
2020
[ES] Los principales patógenos víricos que podemos adquirir ingiriendo alimentos contaminados son los norovirus, el virus de la hepatitis A y el virus de la hepatitis E que se propagan principalmente a través de la vía fecal oral. En los últimos años, la incidencia de brotes de transmisión alimentaria causados por estos patógenos ha experimentado un aumento considerable, en parte debido al comercio globalizado y a los cambios en los hábitos de consumo. Las matrices alimentarias que mayor riesgo representan para el consumidor son los moluscos bivalvos, vegetales de IV gama, frutas tipo baya y platos listos para comer. Actualmente las técnicas moleculares son las más habituales para la detecc…
Novel Probiotic Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis CECT 7210 Strain Active against Rotavirus Infections
2011
ABSTRACT Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe acute gastroenteritis among children worldwide. It is well known that breast-feeding and vaccination afford infants protection. Since breast-feeding has drastically decreased in developed countries, efforts have been focused on the potential use of probiotics as preventive agents. In this study, a novel Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis strain was isolated from infant feces and selected, based on its capacity to inhibit in vitro rotavirus Wa replication (up to 36.05% infectious foci reduction) and also to protect cells from virus infection (up to 48.50% infectious foci reduction) in both MA-104 and HT-29 cell lines. Furthermore, studies…
Staphylococcal food poisoning case and molecular analysis of toxin genes in Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from food in Sicily, Italy.
2014
A case of staphylococcal food poisoning was observed in two individuals of the same family after consumption of primosale, a semiripened sheep cheese produced in Sicily. Staphylococcus aureus isolated from the cheese produced enterotoxin C (SEC) and carried both the enterotoxin C (sec) and the toxic shock syndrome toxin (tsst-1) gene. Following this case, an extensive survey was conducted on 971 food samples (raw milk, cheese, meat, and food preparations). S. aureus was detected in 102 of 971 food samples, from all types of food with the exception of ricotta cheese. The tsst-1 gene was present in 42% of the strains, either alone or in combination with other toxin genes. The enterotoxin C ge…
Site-heterologous haptens and competitive monoclonal antibody-based immunoassays for pyrimethanil residue analysis in foodstuffs
2015
Pyrimethanil is a widely used post-harvest fungicide whose residues are commonly found in fruits and vegetables. We herein report the synthesis of two new functionalized derivatives of pyrimethanil carrying an equivalent spacer arm at different positions of the molecule. The influence of the linker tethering site on the affinity of monoclonal antibodies was shown. Moreover, the development of competitive immunoassays in different formats and with high sensitivity to the target analyte - IC50 values below 0.3μg/L - is described. Optimized assays were characterized by the determination of the limit of quantification, trueness, and precision using water-diluted QuEChERS extracts of fruits and …