Heat is the effective and safe way to help reduce pathogenic contamination in foods.
Explanation:
Food borne illnesses or food poisoning occurs due to the consumption of food or beverages which are contaminated with pathogens, chemicals or toxins. These food borne pathogens are mainly bacteria, fungi and sometimes viruses. Examples for pathogenic contaminants are Campylobacter sp. found in raw and under cooked poultry, Salmonella found in meat, eggs, Escherichia coli found in unpasteurized milk, Clostridium botulinum found in canned foods.
To avoid the pathogenic contamination in food, the safe and effective method is heating the food. Because, most of microorganisms cannot survive in high temperature it is better to cook foods thoroughly in higher temperature.
Further explanation:
Pesticides are chemical substances that is used to control pests such as insects, rodents and unnecessarily grown plants. Pesticides cannot be used to reduce pathogenic contamination in foods as they are very hazardous chemicals and even a trace amount of pesticides may be fatal to human.
Antibiotics are substances synthesized by organisms which inhibits the growth of bacteria. In some countries antibiotics are used as food preservatives, but this is not a very safe of an effective method as antibiotics inhibit only the growth of bacteria not fungi, viruses or other parasites and with time the particular bacteria may develop a resistance against that antibiotic. After that, the certain antibiotic will not work well in food preservation.
Heat is the best choice of avoiding pathogenic food contamination. Most of the microorganisms grows rapidly in room temperature. Growth rate of microorganisms at cooler temperature become slow and remain in dormant state and at higher temperatures they cannot survive. So, well-cooked foods should be consumed as much as possible.
Herbicides are also a kind of pesticide which used to get rid of unwanted herbs. So, herbicides kill only plant materials. Therefore, herbicides do not work on pathogens in foods.
Learn more:
1.Symptoms of food borne illness:
 by lexikatara
2.Food additives inhibiting Clostridium botulinum
 by BioWizard
Keywords
:
Food contamination, food pathogens, antibiotics, pathogen control, heat
