frequently asked questions (faq)

Listed below are a few of the questions we’ve fielded since opening Bodendorfer-Johnson, LLC, in September of 2004. If you’ve got questions on food safety or food quality, please e-mail them to us at info@foodintegrity.net. If other people are likely to ask the same question or if your question is phrased in a particularly witty way, we’ll answer it and post the FAQ here.

Food allergens and food allergies

Q. What is a food allergen?

A. A naturally occurring food protein that can cause an allergic reaction in some people. That person’s immune system mistakes an allergen for a threat and mounts a response. People who don’t have that allergy don’t respond to that allergen. Experts estimate that eight groups of foods account for more than 90% of all food allergies in the U.S. Sometimes referred to as the “Big eight allergens”, these eight groups of foods are: milk, eggs, soybeans, peanuts, wheat, tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts, and cashews), fish, and Crustacean shellfish (e.g. shrimp, lobster, and crab).

Click here for an important article, "Got [hidden] Food Allergens?"
about the BIG 8 allergens, pending FDA labeling mandates, and
building an allergen control program. (This is a PDF file - requires free
Adobe Acrobat Reader; if you need it please visit Adobe's web site.)

Q. What is the difference between food sensitivity, food intolerance and food allergy?

A. “Food sensitivity” is a term applied to two different categories of abnormal reactions to food components: food allergies and food intolerances. Food allergies involve the body’s immune system and can be clinically diagnosed using a blood test. Food allergic hypersensitivity reactions may occur immediately (IgE-mediated food allergies) or they may be delayed (e.g. as with Celiac disease). Food intolerances aren’t mediated by the immune system. Food intolerances include genetically acquired defects like lactose intolerance as well as adverse reactions caused by unknown mechanisms (so-called “idiosyncratic reactions”). Lactose-intolerant individuals have lost the metabolic ability to produce an enzyme (lactase) that digests lactose, the main sugar present in milk.

Food allergies can be life threatening. With the exception of asthmatic individuals who are sensitive to sulfites, however, food intolerances generally do not result in death. In fact, individuals with food intolerances can generally consume some quantity of the offending food without suffering ill effects. Individuals with lactose intolerance, for example, can often eat yogurt or other fermented dairy products without experiencing adverse symptoms. This is because lactose in the food has been broken down during the fermentation process and the individual’s body still produces low levels of lactase.

Auditing

Q. What’s a Certified Quality Auditor?

A. The American Society for Quality (www.asq.org) offers a variety of certifications including the Certified Quality Auditor (CQA). The ASQ CQA rating means that an individual has mastered a standardized body of knowledge on quality auditing. To quote the ASQ website (http://www.asq.org/cert/types/cqa/index.html), “the Certified Quality Auditor is a professional who understands the standards and principles of auditing and the auditing techniques of examining, questioning, evaluating, and reporting to determine a quality system’s adequacy and deficiencies. The Certified Quality Auditor analyzes all elements of a quality system and judges its degree of adherence to the criteria of industrial management and quality evaluation and control systems.”

High pressure processing of food

Q. I’m familiar with heat pasteurization of milk but I don’t understand how a processor can state that a product has been “pasteurized” by irradiation or by high pressure.

A. The term “pasteurization” originally referred to heat treatment, specifically that heat treatment needed to destroy non-sporeforming foodborne pathogens (microorganisms that can cause illness in humans). Use of the term “pasteurization” has been extended to other pathogen-lethality technologies as those technologies have been validated. The definition of “pasteurization” was recently reviewed by the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF), an advisory group chartered by the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Department of Defense Veterinary Service Activity. The NACMCF report on the definition for pasteurization should be released soon; watch http://www.fsis.usda.gov/About_FSIS/NACMCF/index.asp for more information.

Q. How can high pressure processing kill microorganisms like Listeria monocytogenes but not destroy meat structure?

A. While it’s tempting to think that high pressure “squashes” microorganisms like a person squashes a ripe tomato by stepping on it, that’s not really the case. In high pressure processing of food, the pressure is applied uniformly to the microbial cell – a marked contrast to the tomato example where the pressure is applied to the top of the tomato.

Available evidence indicates that high pressure acts by inactivating microbial enzymes necessary for survival and multiplication and/or by increasing cell permeability and thereby disrupting transport activities used to maintain cell viability. Microbial cells have different cellular structures. Some microbial cells (e.g. Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7) are surrounded by only a thin membrane whereas others have an outer cell wall surrounding the membrane. Bacteria having only a cell membrane (sometimes called gram-negative bacteria) are more easily inactivated by pressure than those microorganisms that also have a cell wall (i.e. gram-positive bacteria).

Connective tissue and muscle protein linkages are largely responsible for structural integrity in raw muscle tissues. The structure of cooked meat and poultry products is mostly a result of coagulation of muscle proteins by heat. While high pressure may have some impact on these muscle or meat components, it will not destroy the structure of those products.