Pasteruization of other foods quote

[Guest guest]

I stumbled across this in searching for something else. Here are a couple

of excerpts from the Report. Makes you wonder where we are headed.

United States Animal Health Association

1997 Committee Reports

Report of the Committee on Food Safety

" It seems reasonable to say the lesson learned many years ago that milk must

be pasteurized to make it safe is the single compelling argument for

applying a similar process to certain meat and poultry products that carry a

high risk of contamination. Unpasteurized poultry products and ground meat

can carry pathogenic Salmonellae, E. coli, Campylobacter, etc., that --

given the right circumstances -- can cause serious gastrointestinal disease;

cold pasteurization safely and effectively destroys these pathogens. What

could make more sense than to use this technology now to improve the safety

of foods of animal origin? The presentation was followed by an energetic

discussion between the speaker and the audience with strong support for

utilization of irradiation technology. "

" Dr. Harry Mussman of Isomedix, Inc., discussed the role of cold

pasteurization (irradiation) in preventing foodborne illness. During the

past three decades, the United States has witnessed a remarkable increase in

the level of attention given to food safety issues with a truly sustained

interest. During the past ten years, there has been a growing awareness by

the media and the public that the real culprits are microorganisms that

cause human illness and sometimes death. The CDC & P has identified more than

600 human pathogens associated with food; some are viruses and parasites but

most are bacteria - - E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria and Campylobacter are a

few of those involved.

As the title indicates, cold pasteurization technology is a non- thermal

process for solid foods such as meat, poultry and seafood that destroys

essentially all human pathogen contaminants yet leaves the food

indistinguishable from untreated food. The process uses ionizing radiation

to achieve the pasteurization effect without raising the temperature of the

raw product.

Forty countries worldwide have adopted regulations permitting irradiation of

foods. It was reported that the acknowledgment of the magnitude and severity

of foodborne illness has prompted numerous medical and scientific

organizations, nationally and internationally, to endorse the use of

irradiation technology as a means to reduce the incidence of foodborne

illnesses. More than fifty years of research and more than 10,000

scientifically published articles in the world's scientific literature

justifiably claim that no other food processing technology has been

researched more thoroughly. "

http://www.usaha.org/reports/food97.html