Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In the United States, federal laws are the primary source of food safety regulations,
for example, related codes under CFR Title 7, 9, 21, and 40. The law enforcement
network comprises state government agencies and federal government agencies,
including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administra-
tion (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Food Safety Modernization Act
(H.R. 2751) is a federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on
January 4, 2011. The law grants FDA authority to order recalls of contaminated food,
increase inspections of domestic food facilities, and enhance detection of food-borne
illness outbreaks.
As a result of regulation change and globalization, most nations around the world
have now increased regulations on food safety for their domestic and export markets.
International coordination and standardization are mainly conducted by the Codex
Alimentarius Commission (CAC). The CAC is an intergovernmental body estab-
lished in 1961 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), and joined by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1962 to implement
the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Program. There are 185 member countries and
one organization member (EC) in the Codex now. The Codex standards are
recommendations for voluntary application by members. However, in many cases,
these standards are the basis for national legislation. The Codex covers processed,
semiprocessed, and raw foods. The Codex also has general standards covering (but
not limited to) food hygiene, food additives, food labeling, and pesticide residues [6].
1.1.2 Residues and Matrices of Food Analysis
and High-Throughput Analysis
From the examples listed above, it is simply impossible to test every single item for
every imaginable food-borne pathogen, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites;
food allergens such as milk, eggs, shell
sh, and soybean; naturally occurring toxins
and mycotoxins; residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs; environmental contami-
nants; processing and packaging contaminants; spoilage markers [7]; food authentic-
ity; and labeling accuracy [8].
Fortunately, modern analytical techniques, especially mass spectrometry-based
techniques, such as gas chromatography
-
mass spectrometry (GC
-
MS) and liquid
chromatography
-
mass spectrometry (LC
-
MS), can help speed up the processes. In
the past decade, LC
MS/MS,
has been applied in pesticide residue analysis and other food safety issues. The use of
LC
-
MS, including tandem LC
-
MS techniques, or LC
-
-
MS has increased exponentially in recent years
[9]. For example, an
LC
MS/MS method using a scheduled selected reaction monitoring (sSRM) algo-
rithm was developed and applied to analyze 242 multiclass pesticides for fruits and
vegetables [10]. The high selectivity of LC
-
-
MS can effectively reduce interference
from matrices, which signi
es the process of sample preparation.
In addition, other high-throughput methods, including bioactivity-based methods,
have also been widely applied today and will continue to be applied at least for the
cantly simpli
