From the farm to your mouth, food travels a lot of miles and is handled for tens of hands. There are thousands of variables that could lead to a delicious apple or a thick tasty beef steak to get a person sick. This is why food safety testing is important.
Sometimes common knowledge or a simple eye test can tell if there is something wrong with food and shouldn’t be eaten by humans nor animals. These simple food safety tests can be with our senses by putting attention to the appearance, hardness and odor of fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products and others.
Thanks to human evolution, nowadays we can and need to test the food that we are going to eat because not only of natural degradation, but also because pollution caused by industries and the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides find their way to plants. This pollution can also get into animals by eating contaminated plants. Also animals get growth enhancers to make them gain weight faster. All these and other kinds of contamination can get into the food chain and it is needed a food safety test in a specialized laboratory to be able to find if the food is free from chemicals and microorganisms that could harm humans or animals.
Transportation, processing, storage and food exhibition at the grocery store are also places where food can become contaminated by the surfaces that are touching the food, the cleansy of the hands handling it, the insects and roedors that can touch the food. Also temperature can affect the quality of the food.
The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply and protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, and security of food. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for regulating aspects of some meat, poultry, and egg products. Thanks to these federal and other local agencies, food diseases and infections have decreased since regulations have been established.
Food safety testing is used by federal and local agencies to make aleatory reviews and find if there is anything incorrect. Also business owners, producers, processing factories, restaurants and others send regular samples to the laboratory to avoid liabilities in case that some person or agency finds something irregular, or if a person claims to have food poisoned at a certain restaurant or by eating some processed food.
When it comes to food it is important to have the best hygienic practices to avoid or reduce, when it is not possible to avoid, microbiological contamination and contamination by concentration of pollutant elements.
By using a food safety test at an accredited laboratory you can assure your client that at least, at your part of the food chain, food has been received and processed with hygiene and applying good policies. Having a routine to test food with a food safety test, is good for your business, because this way you are free from liabilities and you can also check if your providers are giving to you the quality of products that your customers deserve.