Food safety in the 21st century
Henson and Traill define food safety as the inverse of
food risk—the probability of not suffering some hazard
from consuming a specific food (Henson & Traill, 1993).
Potential undesirable residues in foods span a broad
range, from natural (e.g. mycotoxins) and environmental
contaminants (e.g. dioxins) to agro-chemicals
(e.g. nitrates and pesticides), veterinary drugs, growth
promoters, packaging components, and many more.
Microbiological considerations are an even greater
challenge to safety of food because potentially harmful
micro organisms have the ability either to grow rapidly
from very low numbers in food or to proliferate in the
human body once ingested (Tent, 1999).