Blog Archives for November 2011

nov

28

Use Egg Product Safety to Cut Your Risk for Foodborne Illness

| Safe Handling

Food safety can present a challenge during the holiday season as it’s probably not the first thing you think about when making holiday goodies. In order to protect you and your guests from food-borne illnesses, it is important to follow certain safety measures when cooking with eggs, including preventing cross contamination and consuming raw or undercooked dishes that contain eggs.

One way to cook safely with eggs is by using egg products. The term “egg products” refers to eggs that have been pasteurized, or exposed to elevated temperatures for a period of time sufficient to destroy certain microorganisms. Egg products can come in many forms including liquid and dried whole eggs, egg whites, and egg yolks. The most common form of egg products you may see in your grocery store are liquid egg whites, typically found in the refrigerated section next to all the cartoned eggs. Egg products are mostly used in baking and cooking where there is a chance that the product is not heated up high enough to completely destroy any food-borne microorganisms, like Salmonella Enteritidis. Some common holiday entrées that you could use egg products include casseroles, soufflés, deviled eggs, cookies, meringues and puddings.

When cooking this holiday season, it is always important to remember that the internal temperature of any product you cook this holiday season reaches 160°F. The Egg Safety Center and USDA does not recommend eating raw shell eggs that are not cooked or undercooked due to the possibility that Salmonella bacteria may be present. So if you plan on sneaking a few spoonfuls of that wonderful chocolate chip cookie dough while baking this holiday season, it may be wise to use egg products instead of raw eggs to avoid contracting a food-borne illness.

 
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nov

15

Breaking Down the Egg Safety Rule: Diversion of eggs from the table egg market

| Industry 101

The main goal of the FDA Egg Safety Rule is to reduce the number of human Salmonella Enteritidis infections from eggs. The required preventative measures discussed in the last few blogs do just that—reduce and/or prevent the transmission of SE onto the farm and therefore significantly lowering the risk foodborne illness from contaminated eggs.

The Egg Safety Rule also requires testing of the poultry house environment to establish the effectiveness of the required SE preventative measures—chick procurement, biosecurity, pest control, and cleaning and disinfection—and to gain information on the SE status of the farm. Testing of the environment takes place at three periods during the laying hen’s life cycle-14-16 weeks, 40-45 weeks, and 4-6 weeks after molting. These periods signify the times during the life cycle that, if present in the bird, SE will be shed at the highest concentration in the environment.

If any samples are found positive during environmental testing, egg producers are required to do additional testing and take immediate action to assure that SE contaminated eggs do not reach consumers. Egg testing takes place over eight weeks to ensure eggs produced are negative for SE. Once the eggs are deemed safe for consumption, they are directed back into the market.

Egg producers continue to work hard to ensure proper implementation of the Egg Safety Rule and other food safety practices to ensure consumers are receiving a safe, high quality product!
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nov

08

Breaking Down the Egg Safety Rule: Cleaning, Disinfection and Refrigeration

| Industry 101

When developing the final rule to prevent contamination of shell eggs with Salmonella Enteritidis, FDA recognized that cleaning and disinfection of poultry houses as well as refrigeration of eggs were two ways to control growth of SE, if it is present, in the farm environment and the egg itself.

While poultry houses are kept quite clean, feathers, dust and feed can fall to the floor of the houses. Cleaning and disinfection of the houses reduces the level of bacteria in the environment and can help decrease the risk of SE transmission. Cleaning before disinfection is essential, as it removes organic matter (dust, manure, spilled feed, and/or egg shells) and exposes the bacteria to the disinfectant so that it can be killed. Disinfectants are chemical that have the ability to kill bacteria on contact. By cleaning and disinfecting the poultry houses, egg producers are killing bacteria present in the environment and reducing the potential for the hens to become contaminated.

If the SE is present in the environment, the laying hen can become contaminated. If the hen contracts SE it can, very rarely, pass it on to the egg, living in the egg white and yolk. If SE is present inside the egg, prompt refrigeration after lay at or below and ambient (air) temperature of 45 °F significantly limits the growth of SE and lessens the potential for human illness.   To ensure eggs are being held at the proper temperature, egg producers monitor daily coolers where the eggs are stored and the vehicles that transport them to the processing plant and stores after processing.

 
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