Chemical food hazards are chemical agents or substances that have the potential to cause adverse health effects in humans when ingested or inhaled.<\/p>\n
Chemical hazard contaminants can occur in food from a variety of sources. The origin of these toxic substances can be drugs, food additives, pesticides, industrial chemicals, environmental pollutants and natural toxins. The number of chemical hazards is at least hundred times more than that of biological hazards.<\/p>\n
A food hazard is any agent that has the potential to pose a threat to human health or cause illness. When a hazardous agent comes in contact with food – it is called contamination.<\/p>\n
Food hazards are generally classified by their sources:<\/p>\n
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Different from biological hazards, which may cause food illness symptoms for a short period of time, the long-term effects of food chemical toxins are of a prime concern.<\/p>\n
Gastroenteritis – inflammation of the stomach and small intestine – is generally the symptoms of biological infections – but with chemicals – the harmful substances may disrupt body metabolism, cause cancers, damage genes, alter organ functions, affect reproduction, and development<\/p>\n
Aflatoxins, for example, can increase the risk of liver cancers – and mercury contamination can affect developing brains in fetuses, infants and children for a lifetime.<\/p>\n
As with all foodborne illnesses, certain populations are more susceptible to becoming ill or developing a greater severity of the illness. These groups include:<\/p>\n
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Chemical hazard contaminants can occur in food from a variety of sources. They can be external and associated with environmental and naturally occurring sources or internal from within the food processing business:<\/p>\n
Algae Biotoxins<\/strong> – Algal toxins are natural product of the lifecycle of the algae – generated during blooms of some algal species. Algal toxin poisoning may occur when shellfish or other marine life become contaminated.<\/p>\n
Shellfish (clams, mussels, scallops, oysters, etc.) are more likely to contain these toxins than fish. Algal toxins can cause diarrhea, vomiting, tingling, paralysis, and other effects. Algal toxins have no taste or smell, and are not eliminated by cooking or freezing.<\/p>\n
Algal toxins are more often toxic when ingested (drinking the water or consuming poisoned wildlife), but poisonings may occur when the algal toxin is inhaled (from ocean sprays) or contacted though exposure to the skin, such as when swimming.<\/p>\n
Shellfish Biotoxins<\/strong> – Shellfish (bivalve and molluscan) can become contaminated by toxin-producing algae because of red tide (algal bloom) events. During red tide, shellfish harvested from the affected areas are not safe to eat.<\/p>\n
Toxic shellfish will taste and appear no different than nontoxic shellfish, and cooking does not destroy the red tide toxin. Testing is the only way to determine if shellfish contain unsafe levels of toxin. Algal blooms are most common in the spring and summer months when sunlight, temperature, and precipitation favor algal growth.<\/p>\n
Fish Biotoxins <\/strong>– Fish biotoxins can cause food illness such as Scombroid and Ciguatera.<\/p>\n
Scombroid poisoning is a food illness caused by the consuming certain species of fish contaminated with scombrotoxin (histamine) as a result of decomposition (inadequate refrigeration during processing or storage). Certain kinds of fish, especially dark meat fish, are more prone to produce histamine toxicity. These species include tuna, mahi-mahi, marlin, bluefish, sardines, anchovy, bonito, herring and mackerel.<\/p>\n
Ciguatera is a food illness caused by consuming reef fish contaminated by ciguatera toxin. The toxin may be found concentrated in large reef fish, most commonly barracuda, grouper, red snapper, eel, amberjack, sea bass, and Spanish mackerel.<\/p>\n
Ciguatera fish poisoning (or ciguatera), the most common form of algal-induced seafood poisoning, is an illness caused by eating contaminated tropical marine reef fish that contain toxins produced by a marine microalgae called Gambierdiscus toxicus, a microscopic algae common in the tropics.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chemical hazard contaminants can occur in food from a variety of sources. The origin of these toxic substances can be drugs, food additives, pesticides, industrial chemicals, environmental pollutants and natural toxins.<\/p>\n
Different from biological hazards, which may cause food illness symptoms for a short period of time, the long-term effects of food chemical toxins are of a prime concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1106],"tags":[1337,82,1342],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17985"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17985"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19839,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17985\/revisions\/19839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodsafetytrainingcertification.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}