Are You Safe From Ecoli in Beef When Its Organic?
In the ongoing battle to keep the potentially mortiferous Eastward. coli O157:H7 pathogen out of hamburger, a range of "killer strategies" has been proposed, among them: zap the meat with irradiation, examination the hell out of information technology, check every carcass for surface contamination, and vaccinate every beef cow against Due east. coli.
Now comes an "all-natural" strategy — one that recently received a thumbs-up from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the bureau granted Baltimore-based Intralytix regulatory clearance for its phage-based EcoShield, which tin can significantly reduce or eliminate Eastward. Coli O157:H7 in footing meat.
Intralytix CEO John Woloszyn told Food Prophylactic News that while EcoShield is not a "argent bullet" for vanquishing E. coli, it does offer a "kill step" that can substantially reduce or eliminate E. coli O157:H7 by 95 to 100 per centum.
He also said that getting the FDA clearance for the product "required a great bargain of data and backup for its safety and effectiveness."
A alloy of three phages, EcoShield is harmless to humans, animals and plants, but provides broad protection against E. coli O157:H7.
What are phages?
Also known as bacteriophages, phages are naturally occurring viruses that tin be very effective in killing leaner. They are everywhere — within of us, on our skin, in the soil, inside and on the outside of plants and animals, and even in the bounding main. They get after specific targeted leaner, infecting and then killing them.
Earlier the advent of antibiotics, phage therapy was used against a range of human diseases with varying results. With the growth of antibiotic resistance, it is now existence viewed as an alternative to antibiotics, in some cases.
Intralytix has produced a brusk, easty-to-understand video that shows how phages piece of work confronting foodborne pathogens.
Revolutionary
Woloszyn described using phages confronting foodborne pathogens as "revolutionary," pointing out that it's an "all-natural approach toward nutrient safety."
"Most thinking in the Western Earth is that you need to utilize harsh chemicals or irradiation against pathogens instead of the powers of Female parent Nature," he said, calculation that consumers are increasingly looking for "natural" nutrient products.
Woloszyn said that phages provide "an all-natural, nontoxic, safe and effective means for significantly reducing or eliminating affliction-causing leaner that are sometimes present on foods.
"Making nutrient safer nature's way" is a company slogan.
Looking ahead, Woloszyn said the company expects that "EcoShield will become a very important tool to brand ground cerise meat safer."
Describing other advantages of the product, Woloszyn said that unlike irradiation, EcoShield doesn't bear upon color, gustatory modality or scent. It also meets Kosher and Halal certification requirements.
Calling EcoShield an "important breakthrough," Woloszyn pointed out that Eastward. coli are surface contaminants and that when y'all grind beef up into hamburger, you've internalized the pathogen.
"This is the problem nosotros solve," he said.
What nearly beef trim?
There's no doubtfulness that hamburgers are an American favorite. Last yr, consumers in this country ordered 2.2 billion hamburgers in restaurants, according to the NPD Group market research firm. That, of form, doesn't include how many hamburgers they ate at dwelling.
But hamburgers are of special business organization to food-safe experts, public wellness officials, beef producers and consumers. That's considering if E. coli O157:H7 gets onto the surface of a piece of meat that gets ground into hamburger, the East. coli moves into the hamburger. And while putting a slice of meat on a hot grill, for example, will impale the Due east. coli, hamburger has to exist cooked until its internal temperature reaches 160 degrees to kill whatsoever East. coli that might be there.
The problem with that, of course, is that many people like their hamburgers medium rare or rare, which means E. coli could be lurking inside of the burger. Then, too, beef trim, which can be annihilation from meat pieces to exterior fat cut from steaks and other cuts, adds its own risks to the equation. Sometimes the trim is mixed into a slurry and doused with ammonia to clean it — a product dubbed "pink slime." Beef trim is often added to hamburgers to keep costs down to consumers.
In 2009, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was worried enough about beef trim that she asked the USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to launch an investigation of how beefiness is tested.
Specifically, she asked the Inspector General to look into the scientific claim and identify whatsoever shortcomings of USDA'southward North-60 testing system for beefiness.
The N-sixty system requires USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service to remove sixty pieces of product from a lot so they can be tested for pathogens such as E. coli.
Earlier this calendar month, the OIG said that the USDA should thoroughly reevaluate the program, pointing out that the sample size and design might not practise a good plenty chore of detecting O157:H7 in beefiness trim.
The OIG also recommended that the USDA move to an inspection organisation that volition determine which processing plants are at a higher chance of E. coli O157:H7.
The report is Phase one of OIG's response to a Congressional request to evaluate the Northward-60 program. In Stage Ii, OIG will look at the mode testing is done at plants.
Early this calendar month, USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong "woke up" a few people during her presentation earlier a congressional subcommittee when she said that the N-60 testing plan wasn't working.
She told the subcommittee members that a recently completed audit assessing how the Nutrient Prophylactic Inspection Service samples beefiness trim for E. coli revealed that the procedure "does not yield a statistical precision that is reasonable for food condom."
At the aforementioned fourth dimension, she said that while sixty samples might be plenty to observe widespread contagion, more are needed when East. coli is less prevalent.
Some beef-industry reps railed at that, saying that the more they exercise to eradicate Eastward. coli from footing beef, the more than testing the government wants to exercise.
One exasperated industry representative said the solution is simple plenty: "Ban hamburgers."
On March eighteen, USDA Nether Secretary for Food Prophylactic Elisabeth Hagen told participants at the North American Meat Processors' Management Conference that the agency volition probably phone call for increased testing of beef trim and footing beef across the electric current N-lx sample rate, based on the OIG report.
Only she also said that the USDA realizes that it can't "test its way to nutrient safety" and that fifty-fifty if it took 500 samples from a lot, it would exist impossible to notice every pathogen in every lot.
Some meat-industry reps propose that E. coli prevention be directed to sampling beefiness carcasses since that's where E. coli is. They say that waiting to take samples until after the carcass is made into interior and exterior cuts doesn't make whatever sense. If, instead, standardized 'lot' samplings were performed on the outside of carcasses, results could exist available before the carcasses left the libation, thus reducing the likelihood that contagion would ever reach the processing floor.
Just Intralytix CEO Woloszyn said that each meat-processing plant has its own procedures and therefore needs to craft a nutrient-safety program that matches its own operation He pointed out that beef trim often falls on the floor or is handled by workers or comes into contact with equipment that might exist harboring E. coli.
"Oftentimes the best time to use EcoShield would be just earlier the meat is footing," he said.
EcoShield is applied in a very fine mist sprayed onto the meat. When necessary, the beefiness trim is rolled to brand certain the mist covers all parts of the pieces of meat.
Woloszyn said it's easy to use the product and applications don't require expensive equipment — either a spray box or battery operated spray bottles.
As for toll, he didn't supply a specific amount but said that it depends on how a processing constitute is ready up and what food-safety procedures it uses.
"We estimate the cost for each client," he said. "Nosotros remember the cost is very competitive especially when some steps a plant is taking can be eliminated when EcoShield is used."
Looking alee
While the company doesn't yet have whatsoever customers for EcoShield, Woloszyn said some potential customers "are looking very seriously at this product." "We're very h
opeful about information technology," he said.
In an e-mail to Food Safety News, Michael Martin, spokesman for meat-behemothic Cargill, said that while FDA approval for utilise of EcoShield is "an encouraging evolution," USDA has not canonical it for employ with meat products.
"Should USDA approval take place, Cargill would review the potential benefits of using EcoShield, just as we practice with any measures that evidence promise and could potentially exist added to our toolbox of food prophylactic interventions," Martin said.
The FDA and USDA'due south Nutrient Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) work collaboratively on approvals of substances to exist used in or on meat and poultry products. FSIS spokesman Neil Gaffney said the FDA has forwarded EcoShield's asking to FSIS and the submission is currently under review as a safety and suitable treatment for meat past the FSIS Function of Policy and Program Development's Adventure and Innovations Management Division.
"The review occurs simultaneously, with the intent to consummate it within ii months," Gaffney said.
More phage weapons
In addition to EcoShield, Intralytix has another phage-based food-safety product, ListShield, which provides broad protection specifically against Listeria monocytogenes. According to the visitor'due south website, the product significantly reduces contamination levels of various foods by 99 to 100 per centum. It tin also be used on surfaces in food processing facilities and other establishments.
ListShield is FDA- and USDA-approved for direct applications on food. And on the organic front, it's OMRI-listed, which means the Organic Materials Review Institute approves its use in organic product.
The company has another phage-based product in the works, SalmShield, which targets selected, highly pathogenic Salmonella-serotypes in foods and food processing facilities.
In addition to baceteriophage-based food-prophylactic products, Introlytix likewise focuses on the production and marketing of phage products to control bacterial pathogens in medical settings and the environmental.
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Video, plus images of the EcoShield product and lab workers, courtesy of Intralytix.
Source: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/03/a-natural-product-to-fight-e-coli/
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