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The overall objective of this project is to provide research and educational support to regional, state, national and international food processing companies in the area of food safety and value-added processing.
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These objectives will be reached through the following sub-objectives: <ol> <li>Food Safety A farm to table approach will be used to determine pathogen reductions on the farm, through slaughter and processing.
<li>Value-Added Processing A nutritious, healthy breakfast sausage will be developed.
<li>Technology Transfer. </ol>
Regional, state, national and international needs of food processing companies in the area of food safety and value-added processing are great. This project will examine pre and post-harvest means to improve the safety of the food supply. Additionally, new value-added products will be developed.
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These objectives will be reached through the following sub-objectives: <ol> <li>Food Safety: A farm to table approach will be used to determine pathogen reductions on the farm, through slaughter and processing to determine how multi-step interventions at various production and processing points interact to produce a safer food product. Additionally, we will determine the accuracy of using dentition and skeletal ossification, as individual or combined predictors, to identify cattle that are more than 30 months old as a control method to prevent BSE from entering the food supply.
<li>Value-Added Processing: The average consumer is always looking for a healthy, appealing, and nutritious breakfast. Even though there are several convenient pre-cooked sausages, there are few nutritionally enhanced pre-cooked sausages and no pre-cooked sausages made with chicken dark meat, a relatively inexpensive meat product that is underutilized in todays markets. Therefore, if a pre-cooked nutritionally enhanced chicken sausage could be developed with dark meat then the consumer could be provided with a nutritious, enhanced, palatable and convenient breakfast alternative.</ol></p>
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In order to complete this long-term goal, the following objectives are proposed: <ol> <li>Development of a convenient pre-cooked breakfast chicken sausage made with underutilized dark meat enhanced with oat fiber to provide an appealing, high quality, and nutritious breakfast alternative to the consumer
<li>Determination of the quality and fate of added oat fiber in the pre-cooked chicken breakfast sausage during processing, cooking, and storage (short-term and long-term)
<li>Technology Transfer Educational materials will be developed to highlight the research developed in the center and to transfer research results to the end users.</ol>