Food Contamination and it's impact

Contamination of food, Issue regarding food.

This issue of Foods is dedicated to discuss the microbial, chemical and physical contamination challenges of food products. Food contamination is generally defined as foods that are spoiled or tainted because they either contain microorganisms, such as bacteria or parasites, or toxic substances that make them unfit for consumption. A food contaminant can be biological, chemical or physical in nature. These contaminants have several routes throughout the supply chain to enter and make a food product unfit for consumption.

 Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum

Chemical food contaminants that can enter the food supply chain include pesticides, heavy metals, and other alien chemical agents.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized food contamination as a global challenge in several reports.It is clearly acknowledged in a statement: “food contamination that occurs in one place may affect the health of consumers living on the other side of the planet”.  

Infact, a vast majority of people experience a foodborne or waterborne disease at some point in their lives worldwide. Therefore, consumption of contaminated foods causes illness in millions of people and many die as a result of it. This scenario makes “food contamination” a serious issue. The list of food contamination challenges is very long and keeps growing. I would list three challenges, fresh produce contamination, antibiotics in food products and intentional contamination of foods, to highlight the importance of this topic.

TYPES OF FOOD CONTAMINATION:

There is some dispute regarding how many different types of food contamination there are, with some saying there are three and others declaring four. Both cover the multiple incidences that could occur. The three types of contamination are biological, physical, and chemical. However, for the purpose of this article, we will discuss four categories. These include chemical contamination, physical contamination, microbial contamination, and allergen contamination.