Building Block Associates

  • Home
  • Products & Solutions
    • View Supplies
    • What's In Season
    • Manage Mie Foodservice Manager
    • Foodservice Webinars
    • Become A Member
  • Online Store
  • Social Chat Blog
    • Foodservices News
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Home
  • Products & Solutions
    • View Supplies
    • What's In Season
    • Manage Mie Foodservice Manager
    • Foodservice Webinars
    • Become A Member
  • Online Store
  • Social Chat Blog
    • Foodservices News
  • Contact Us
  • Careers

Researchers develop technique to identify unwanted animal products in ground beef

11/27/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed a new technique to identify unwanted animal products in ground beef.
VANCOUVER -- The University of British Columbia has good news for anyone who's been a little nervous about sinking their teeth into a juicy hamburger ever since horse meat was found in European beef a few years ago.

Also read, Food economist has a beef with 'antibiotic-free' label.

Researchers at the university have developed a new technique to identify unwanted animal products in ground beef, using a laser-equipped spectrometer and statistical analysis.

DNA testing can already identify foreign species in meat products, but it can't locate offal, such as hearts, livers, kidneys and stomachs, mixed in with meat of the same species. UBC's new technique can do both.

"We think this might be a way to fill the gap," said Yaxi Hu, a PhD candidate in UBC's faculty of land and food systems, as well as the study's lead author.

Hu said when a food product has a low market share, there is potential for unscrupulous companies to mix it into higher-value foods. Since the consumption of offal in North America is pretty low, the students guessed it was possible that it was being used in meat.

The study doesn't make any findings about whether this is happening, but it does lay the groundwork for future studies to test beef products from Canadian supermarkets to see if they contain offal.

Instead, Hu and fellow food science students made their own meat samples by grinding together beef and offal. They then aimed a spectrometer at the meat.

Animal products have different chemical compositions, so their molecules react to energy from the laser in different ways. The spectrometer captures images of their reactions, which are saved in a database that can be used to compare with other samples.

Hu said the instrumentation for the technique is not too complex so it could be adopted by industry and government fairly easily. They would just need a spectrometer and software that connects to a database of spectral images, she said.

"Our database ... can be transferred to a lot of other places, and they can use this database to see what kind of products they have -- if it's an authentic one or an adulterated one," she said.

The study was funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Mitacs and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

The 2013 European horse meat scandal is among the most well-known examples of food fraud. Beef products in several countries were found to contain undeclared horse meat, prompting outrage from consumers.

But Canada has not been immune to the issue. A study released earlier this year by researchers at the University of Guelph and commissioned by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently found that 20 per cent of sausages sampled from grocery stores across Canada contained meats that weren't on the label.

Most alarming for kosher or halal consumers, seven of 27 beef sausages examined in the study were found to contain pork.

Hu said she is more concerned about safety than undeclared meat. She said she became interested in food fraud because she's from China, where milk and infant formula was found to have been adulterated with melamine in 2008, hospitalizing more than 50,000 babies and killing six.
"I don't want my products to be fraudulent but if it's safe, I can sort of stand it," she said. "But if the adulterant is something that's not an edible animal source -- for example, I know that there are people (in other countries) using rat, or dog or cat meat -- that's really disgusting to me."

SOURCE Laura Kane, The Canadian Press
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Go to blog
    Advertisement

    RSS Feed

    News & Updates

    Stay informed with the latest news around foodservice, agriculture and other related food news.

    Do you Enjoy our E-news & Updates?
    Get our foodservice E-news, blogs and LTO's sent to your inbox, SUBSCRIBE HERE.

    Advertisement Opportunities 
    To get your foodservice business in our daily e-news, here.

    Archives

    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    Categories

    All
    Agriculture And Food Safety
    All Day Breakfast Menu
    Beans Benefits
    Beverage Company
    Building Construction
    Candy Company
    Carbonated Drinks
    Chicken Farm
    Dairy Production
    Fast Food
    Fast Food Chains
    Food Prices
    Generation Z
    Genetically Modified Organisms
    Gluten Free
    Grocery Retailer
    Healthy Meals For Kids
    Imported Foods
    Imported Foods From Other Countries
    Liquor Licence
    Milk Industry
    Milliennials
    National Food Holidays
    Nut Allergies
    Organic & Natural
    Processed Foods
    Produce Industry
    Restaurant
    Restaurant Management
    Restaurant Ordering System
    Restaurateurs
    Seafood
    Sustainable Resources
    Sweet Snacks
    Sweet Tasting Desserts
    Tree Nuts
    Value Menu Offering
    Ways To Reduce Food Waste

    Picture
    Advertisement
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.