To determine the presence of Clostridium difficile, we sampled cooked and uncooked meat products sold in Tucson, Arizona. Forty-two percent contained toxigenic C. difficile strains (either ribotype 078/toxinotype V [73%] or 027/toxinotype III [NAP1 or NAP1-related; 27%]). These findings indicate that food products may play a role in interspecies C. difficile transmission.

The imidazoquinoline and imidazoquinoxaline food mutagens found in cooked meat are being synthesized by unambiguous methods that allow for the preparation of sufficient quantities of material for biological studies. These methods avoid difficult separations of regioisomeric mixtures of products and are designed to allow incorporation of specific high level tritium labeling.

This commentary was written to stimulate thoughts on, and consideration of, enzyme expression data in target organs when investigating possible associations between polymorphisms in carcinogen activation enzymes, lifestyle/dietary factors and cancer risk. The lung and breast are taken as examples. There is overwhelming evidence for a genotoxic mechanism in lung cancer development, and compellin...

Koudela B., L. Steinhauser: Evaluation of Vitality of Sarcocysts in Beef by the DAPI Fluorescence Test. Acta vet. Brno, 53,1984: 193-197. Vitality of Sarcocystis sp. cystozoites in beef was evaluated by means of the DAPI fluorescence test. Results were verified by biological assays in definitive hosts. Sarcocysts remained vital in beef kept at refrigerator temperature over a period of 20 days a...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of ageing time of lamb loins prior to freezing on technological characteristics and oxidation stability of coarse ground lamb loin sausage using in a model system. METHODS Lamb loins (M. longissimus lumborum, n = 25) were aged at -1.5°C for 0, 1, 2, 3, and 8 wk and then frozen for the remaining days (a total of 30 wk). The aged...

Ingredients such as ascorbic acid used to preserve redness of the raw meat, and carnosine and ribose used for flavor improvement have been incorporated into minced meats to increase consumer acceptance. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible synergistic effect of ascorbic acid, carnosine, and ribose on the sensory and physico-chemical characteristics of minced bison meat. S...

In this preliminary investigation, different commercial categories of Italian cooked pork hams have been characterized using an integrated approach based on both sensory and fast instrumental measurements. For these purposes, Italian products belonging to different categories (cooked ham, "selected" cooked ham and "high quality" cooked ham) were evaluated by sensory descriptive analysis and by ...

background :    salmonellosis is an infectious and a food-borne disease of humans and animals. the initial source of the infection is the intestinal tracts of birds and other animals. apparently healthy animals can become subclinical carriers and persistently shed salmonella in their feces which can act as a reservoir for the pathogen. the aim of this study is to detect the carriers of salmonel...

A total of three experiments were conducted to compare physical and microbiological properties of raw and marinated broiler breast fillets selected as being either lighter or darker than normal. Visibly light- and dark-colored breast fillets were divided into marinated and control groups, and vacuum-tumbled for 20 min at 4 C under 80 kPa pressure. Breast fillets from the four treatment groups w...