Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food

Aims to help in creating regulations that are consistent, reliable, and ensure the best protection for the health of American consumers. This book addresses the concerns in food safety, such as microbial disease surveillance plans, tools for establishing food safety criteria, and issues specific to meat, dairy, poultry, seafood, and produce.

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Food safety regulators face a daunting task: crafting food safety performance standards and systems that continue in the tradition of using the best available science to protect the health of the American public, while working within an increasingly antiquated and fragmented regulatory framework. Current food safety standards have been set over a period of years and under diverse circumstances, based on a host of scientific, legal, and practical constraints.


Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food lays the groundwork for creating new regulations that are consistent, reliable, and ensure the best protection for the health of American consumers. This book addresses the biggest concerns in food safety?including microbial disease surveillance plans, tools for establishing food safety criteria, and issues specific to meat, dairy, poultry, seafood, and produce. It provides a candid analysis of the problems with the current system, and outlines the major components of the task at hand: creating workable, streamlined food safety standards and practices.


Table of Contents


Front Matter
Executive Summary
1 Historical Perspective on the Use of Food Safety Criteria and
Performance Standards
2 The Science of Public Health Surveillance
3 Food Safety Tools
4 Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards to Control Hazards
in Meat and Poultry Products
5 Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards to Control Hazards
in Seafood
6 Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards to Control Hazards
in Produce and Related Products
7 Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards to Control Hazards
in Dairy Products
8 Overall Findings and Recommendations
Appendix A: Current and Proposed Definitions of Key Food Safety
Terms
Appendix B: Sanitation Performance Standards
Appendix C: Food and Drug Administration and Environmental
Protection Agency Guidance Levels for Seafoods
Appendix D: Food Defect Action Levels in Produce
Appendix E: International Microbiological Criteria
Appendix F: International Microbiological Criteria for Dairy
Products
Appendix G: U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Marketing
Service Standards for Milk and Dairy Products
Appendix H: Biographical Sketches of Committee and Subcommittee
Members
Index