Foodborne Pathogens cum Contamination, Hygiene Practices, and Other Associated Issues in Ready-to-Eat Food
Swati Ray, Joyati Das, Ranjana Pande, A. Nithya
Abstract
The ongoing technological development has caused some obvious lifestyle changes, including people opting for ready-to-eat (RTE) foods to save time. RTE foods are a group of convenient, readily available, nutritious meals that require minimal or no cooking or preparation time. As they are often consumed at the point of sale or later without any further processing, incidents of foodborne illnesses or pathogenic contamination have become quite common. The health risks associated with these products are quite disastrous and may lead to public health nuisances worldwide. The most common cause of such contamination is the mishandling of food, which may harvest pathogens or allow their entry through cross-contamination. Food handlers may be infected themselves and contaminate food or infect food through contaminated hands. Other causes may be inappropriate temperature exposure, contaminated utensils, and instruments, or defective packaging systems, which provide several pathways for invasion by microorganisms. Common pathogens may include bacteria, protozoa, algae, or even viral contamination that not only spoils the food completely but also compromises the health of consumers. Therefore, it is becoming a necessity to implement proper sanitary conditions and sufficient hygienic practices while handling RTE food. Administering normal food safety guidelines is repeatedly found to be insufficient, causing periodic outbreaks. Proper risk-assessment-based techniques must be implemented in the processing chain of RTE foods to reduce or control these shortcomings. This chapter focuses on a detailed discussion of pathogenic microbial contamination, hygienic measures, and other issues in RTE food.