Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Enhanced Safety and Extended Shelf Life
of Fresh Produce for the Military
Peter Setlow, Christopher J. Doona,
Florence E. Feeherry, Kenneth Kustin,
Deborah Sisson, and Shubham Chandra
Introduction
Fresh fruits and vegetables (FFVs) provide rich sources of bioavailable nutrients,
vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and dietary fi ber for healthy diets, and they also
provide the consumer with crisp and crunchy food textures and refreshing mouthfeel.
As the consumption of fresh produce continues to increase and gain an increasing
share of the ready-to-eat (RTE) foods market, the incidence of reported outbreaks of
foodborne illnesses associated with eating fresh produce has also increased. In recent
years, salads, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, melons, sprouts, onions, apples, berries, and
fruit juices have been implicated as the sources of illnesses, with the pathogens in
these cases having been identifi ed as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp ,
Listeria monocytogenes , viruses, and parasites. The outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 in
leafy greens (prepackaged fresh-cut lettuce, salad blends, and spinach) that caused
>
400 illnesses and 2 deaths and the recurrent outbreaks related to Salmonella in
tomatoes (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2007) and jalapeƱo peppers have
heightened the public's awareness of the safety of fresh produce and prompted inten-
sifi cation of the dedicated efforts of growers, processors, and federal and state govern-
ment agencies to enhance farm-to-fork agrimanagement practices and ensure fresh
produce safety for the consumer.
Microbial contaminants can be transmitted to fresh produce from a variety of
sources, such as contaminated soils, contaminated irrigation water and lines, improp-
erly composted animal manure used as fertilizer, bird droppings, intrusions of feral
animals into growing fi elds, insuffi cient pesticide use, poor hygiene practices of
employees, and unsanitary conditions during shipping, handling, processing, and
distribution. Accordingly, perspectives to enhance the safety of fresh produce have
produced a variety of initiatives ranging from improving farm management to explor-
ing alternative processing technologies such as irradiation and chemical sanitizing
agents. These enhancements include conducting independent third-party audits and
improving farming practices, controlling the proximity of animal pastures and growing
fi elds, avoiding or treating contaminated water sources for irrigation, increasing the
monitoring of microbial hazards and traceability throughout the supply chain, enhanc-
ing sanitization strategies in processing plants and using potentially more effi cient
chemical agents (in fl ume washes and for cleaning processing and handling equip-
ment) such as chlorine, hypochlorite, peroxyacetic acid, ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or
chlorine dioxide, the agent of particular interest in this chapter.
Another response to these outbreaks, however, has been a heightened sense of the
vulnerability of the public to potential bioterrorist threats that could infi ltrate the
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