Introduction
Food safety and defense are intimately associated like the faces on a coin, in that they interface with food and microbiology. In fact no food is devoid of a microbial component, even canned food that has been processed to the 12D thermal processing standard (FDA21CFR108).Thefoodthatweconsumefeedsnotjustourowncellsbutthemilieuofmicroorganismsthatinhabitourgastro- intestinal tract. Assuming a food is not sterile (whatever that truly means) the organisms in the food itself have an impact on the food over time. Fermentation processes, either accidental or deliberate, change the taste, appearance, and nutritional value of the food. Spoilage is the undesirable outcome of the action of one or more microorganisms on the original food. Finally, the safety of the food and the ability of the agents in the food to cause disease have a most profound impact on society. The field of food safety and security are intimately associated, and in a larger sense tied into the world’s most pressing challenge: climate change (Figure 1). Ultimately we are a product of evolution and both the production and the safety of food is a function of human evolution. We evolved from largely herbivore origins to meat eaters and finally to cooked-meat eaters. Along the way our brains and our gastrointestinal systems have evolved to become more powerful and more efficient, respectively. The consequences of this, along with an evolving immune system, are different illnesses caused by the consumption of food-borne organisms. Upon consumption, these potential pathogens may make safe passage through a low-pH environment where they encounter a large pop- ulation of resident microorganisms that exist in our gastrointestinal tract. There, in conjunction with our mucosal immune system, a delicate dance occurs that may result in no appreciable outcome or a severe disease. The notion of zoonotic disease is a manifes- tation of this evolution, and when a particular agent crosses between species, major attention is given to this event as it represents another significant challenge to public health. The microorganisms associated with or deliberately added to food substrates also present enormous opportunities to improve therepertoire offoodproductsandimpact,aswellastoexcite,thehumanpalate.Thetransformation ofthestartingmaterialcanbe dramatic and the biochemical reactions are complex. A number of culinary-focused efforts to expand the fermentation repertoire have tapped into the information generated by next generation sequencing to develop new flavors, textures, and foods (Felder et al., 2012).