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RESEARCH MAKING FOOD SAFER, EXECUTIVE SAYS

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 12:44 AM CDT

The head of a North Little Rock company that specializes in preventing foodborne illnesses sought to dispel a number of myths about food safety Tuesday.

Speaking to the Pine Bluff Rotary Club, Safe Foods Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Curtis Coleman said, despite what some may think, American food products are safer now than they’ve ever been.

“Many recalls are because of some outstanding new science,” he said. “The fact is we now detect problems much sooner.”

Safe Foods was founded in 1999 after a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences researcher found that an ingredient used in most mouthwash also could be used to kill salmonella on chicken. Coleman said the antiseptic is “1,000 times more effective than anything that’s ever been discovered.”

The company has since added more products to prevent E. coli and other pathogens from contaminating foods like beef, pork and vegetables.

He said 5,000 deaths in the U.S. a year are attributed to foodborne illnesses and 76,000 are treated for sickness caused by contaminated food. The problem comes with a $22 billion annual price tag.

“Most of those 5,000 deaths are small children or elderly people whose immune systems have become deficient,” he said.

Coleman said 73 percent of Americans are more worried about food safety than they are about terrorist attacks.

“This is an increasing concern here in our country now,” he said.

But advances in science have brought about significant changes. Food products in the last half of the 19th Century, Coleman said, particularly in highly-populated areas like Washington, D.C., and New York, often contained extremely harmful ingredients.

For example, it was common for vinegar to contain sulfuric acid and candy to contain lead. During that time period, 8,000 infants died in New York City in one year alone after mothers gave their babies “fresh country milk.” The cows that produced the milk were boarded in stables attached to a distillery and were fed an alcoholic mash mixed with plaster. And in the early 1800s it was discovered in Chicago that large amounts of sausage meat contained rat dung.

Coleman said many Americans also believe that packaged food is safer.

“Packaged food is processed more than unpackaged food — it is touched by many more hands,” he said.

Most germs that cause illnesses start out as a presence on the surface of foods and get inside during processing. Another problem with packaged food is that it is sometimes mislabeled.

Coleman said the growing trend toward organic food also might not be as safe as some believe because they are “not all created equal.” In June 2007 the Department of Agriculture approved 38 non-organic ingredients for use in organic beef, he said.

More and more, people have to begun to believe that scientific processes used on food make it less healthy, that scientists are “plotting to fill our diets with unnatural additives.” But Coleman said it is because of their research that the public is now more aware of the dangers.

As to how much control individuals have over their ability to eat safe foods, Coleman said it depends on where they’re eating. Food prepared at home is more likely to be safe when the proper precautions are taken, such as washing hands and counter tops, cooking meat thoroughly and refrigerating food promptly.

Avoid eating rare steak because many of them are injected with flavors and tenderizers that are reused after leaking out of the meat, Coleman said. And bagged salad is a common source of foodborne illness that can be prevented by washing contents thoroughly.

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