Zapping pathogens: New technologies show promise in keeping our food safe

Pink slime fed to kids at schools. Listeria and arsenic found in food. Even food packaging can leech unhealthy chemicals into our diet. While the cases of severe foodborne illness are relatively low, these news stories demonstrate how the food we eat can make us sick. This makes recent budget cuts to the microbiological data program, which monitors food borne pathogens, troublesome. Luckily, new innovative procedures appear promising for reducing foodborne pathogens on food.

In our fast paced, rat race lives, eating healthy can be challenging. Packaged prewashed salad greens and spinach provides an easy solution for healthy eating for the person on the go. Some of these salads even come with dressing and a fork. So one can simply open, poor, shake and eat. This convenience, however, came with a large price tag in 2006 when bagged spinach carrying ecoli killed five people. This tragedy marked the beginning of the race towards developing more effective washes.

Chlorinated washed have been useful in killing foodborne pathogens on prewashed salad greens. These chlorinated washes, however, do not meet standards for food labeled organic. This means that organic companies need to find non-chlorinated ways to sanitize their product. Earthbound Farm, a major player in the bagged organic industry, teamed with the Institute of Food Safety and Health to develop new effective ways for sanitizing their greens. Recently, they found that high powered ultrasounds may be useful in removing pathogens. In this process, the ultrasounds create tiny bubbles that vibrate off pathogens, which are then carried away in a natural wash. While the machines are quite expensive, if they prove effective the benefits of avoiding food recalls or unintended illness would outweigh its costs.

Another promising sanitation technique under investigation is the use of plasma. Research led by Jennifer Quinlan at Drexel University found that plasma zapping eliminated or reduced the presence of bacteria contaminants on chicken. This means plasma, a high-energy, charged mix of atoms in a gas state, provides a non-thermal way to sanitize food. But don’t stop worrying about cooking your chicken thoroughly just yet, the high cost of this procedure coupled with the cost margin of food production means we won’t be eating plasma zapped chicken anytime soon.

While these advancements in technology provide innovative ways to eliminate or reduce pathogens in food, the cost of this technology limits the widespread use. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just pop a pill when we become ill to pathogenic food? Well, in the future that may be possible. Researchers at Purdue University found that combining Listeria adhesion protein with a probiotic decreased the amount of Listeria bacteria entering the bloodstream after an infection. During a Listeria infection, intestinal cells express heat shock protein 60, which Listeria adhesion protein binds to, allowing movement into the bloodstream. This probiotic with the Listeria adhesion protein competitively binds to the intestine and reduces movement into the bloodstream through competitive binding.   

Since we all eat food to live, foodborne pathogens can kill anyone. This makes innovation to remove pathogens from food essential. Although high powered ultrasonic washes and plasma zapping appear promising, cost limitations could keep these techniques out of mainstream use for the near future. However, there are individual measures to take to reduce likelihood of foodborne illness. Individuals should monitor the food safety website for food recalls and follow proper food handling procedures. If monitoring of recalls is too much work, you can also set up to receive automatic email alerts of recalls.