The goal of this research is to help food processors effectively control their cooking process and eliminate pathogens from ready-to-eat meat products. Based on the fundamentals of cooking processes, this research will determine the effect of various elements on pathogen destruction and develop a tool to predict pathogen lethality and correlate cooking time with product temperature for all thermal processes, including hot water cooking, steam cooking, smoking, frying, and convection cooking.
Cooking serves as the primary means of eliminating pathogens in ready-to-eat meat products and protecting the public from foodborne disease. Inadequate cooking is a major contributing factor that leads to outbreaks of foodborne illness. In 2001, millions of pounds of ready-to-eat meat products were recalled due to inadequate cooking.
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Currently, there are no standard operation procedures that will help food processors to collect scientific data required to demonstrate the effectiveness of their cooking processes. This research will help to better our understanding of cooking processes so as to maximize food safety, food quality, and product yield.