The Importance of Purification Techniques in the Food Industry

The food industry in the United States has many rules and regulations regarding the handling and purity of their products. Companies want to make sure that the products they put out are up to their own personal standards and those of the government for a number of reasons, all relating to quality products and general health concerns.

Water Purification

• Food manufacturers use water at some point in just about every process relating to their work. Whether water is an ingredient in the food that they are making, or just in use washing the equipment, clean water is necessary to ensure that potentially harmful bacteria do not contaminate the food we receive.

Food Allergies

• Purity of ingredients is an integral part of preventing accidental foodborne allergy anaphylaxis. For example, there is an increasing prevalence in our country of people born with a severe nut allergy, and food manufacturers need to be conscious of what goes into their food, testing to make sure that there are no contaminates that could lead a customer being accidently exposed to a known allergen.

Proper Bacteria

• Many foods require the proper bacteria to complete their production. Yogurt, kimchi and all other fermented foods require specific bacteria to create the desired product. Food manufacturers carefully watch and regulate their bacterial stocks to ensure that the proper bacteria are in their foods.

Bioterrorism Protection

• Bioterrorism is a constant threat upon our country, and a few successful but luckily nonlethal attacks have occurred on American soil. In an effort to make sure that their company does not accidently allow an act of biological terrorism to occur, every U.S. food manufacturer has a stringent level of precaution that they take in testing and purifying their foods. Because of their oversight, the cases of foodborne bioterrorism in this country have been post-manufacture, with no incidences ever occuring at the actual factories.

Pasteurization

• Pasteurization is one of the first major breakthroughs in microbiology. It is the process of heating a substance to a high enough temperature that the bacteria inside is either killed or rendered harmless to humans. Pasteurization also increases the shelf-life of food by killing the microbes that would ordinarily lead to spoilage. There are several different accepted methods of food pasteurization which vary in the temperature that the food is brought to, and the time for which the food is held at this temperature. Milk is an example of a food in the United States that is always pasteurized to increase shelf-life.