On October 14th, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed major changes to how chicken and turkey are processed. While this will reduce food poisoning, it could force meat companies to make major changes to their operations. Despite decades of efforts to curb disease caused by Salmonella in food, more than one million people are infected with Salmonella each year, nearly a quarter of whom eat poultry.
Currently, consumers can avoid raw poultry disease by following the standard advice of not washing raw chicken or turkey meat as it can spread bacteria and by handling raw poultry carefully, such as using separate utensils when preparing meat and cooking to 165 degrees.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service wants to do something about this problem, starting with the farmers who raise the birds and through the processing plants where the meat is made. Of the more than 2,500 Salmonella serotypes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified three that cause one-third of all human illnesses from chicken and turkey products.
In 1994, FSIS took a similar step, declaring several strains of E. coli to be ground beef contaminants and embarking on a pathogen testing program. This has greatly reduced meat-borne diseases. To curb the outbreak of Salmonella in poultry, the Agency has identified bacterial diseases that commonly affect the intestinal tract and affect 1.3 million people annually with symptoms that may be accompanied by symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea etc. a proposes a regulatory framework that includes inspecting incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys.
By inspecting chickens and turkeys before they enter the slaughterhouse, we hope to encourage farmers to adopt practices that reduce bacterial infections in birds before they enter the meat processing stage.
A 2nd measure could require greater tracking for salmonella at some stage in processing with the aid of using adopting sampling for the micro organism at a couple of ranges within the processing facility. The predominant alternate could be to set up a most degree of bacterial infection allowed and probably restricting the 3 particular varieties of salmonella which could make human beings sick. Meat that could exceed the bounds or that could incorporate the varieties of salmonella prohibited might be withheld from the market.
The government’s purpose is to provide the new guidelines that would be rolled out shortly and be finished within the next two years. The organisation hopes to implementing laws from 2023. Consumer advocates have driven for such movement on poultry merchandise for years.
The enterprise has been not able to satisfy authorities goals for decreasing food-borne salmonella infections for more than one many years. More than 23% of foodborne salmonella ailments are because of chicken intake with almost 17% coming from hen meat and greater than 6% from turkey meat. The North American Meat Institute, the exchange affiliation representing U.S. packers and processors of beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey, stated efforts to fight salmonella are a excessive priority.
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