What's first, chicken or egg: Now how are they processed?

By MANDY SPIKES | Central Texas Edition

Sarah Birkhold discusses poultry egg and meat safety during the TFB Leadership Conference.

February 5, 2004 -- The importance of poultry egg and meat safety is a main concern of consumers today. One way to ease that concern is to learn how the food and eggs purchased are processed. The public was given a chance to learn how chicken products are processed during the Texas Farm Bureau Leadership Conference, which took place Jan. 26-28 in College Station. Sarah Birkhold discussed poultry egg and meat safety, as well as the hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) program.

Birkhold stated that the average consumer wants to spend 20 minutes or less from the time they begin cooking to when they clean up. "Consumers want convenient, ready-to-eat products that are fresh. Usually, fast and fresh don't mix."

In today's fast pace world, as opposed to the late 1940's, egg consumption has declined. This is due to a change in the family structure. "People now have other choices for breakfast, so they are not eating an egg everyday for breakfast." She said that public perception of eggs as being 'bad' for you has also lead to a decline of consumption, although there have been no facts to support this claim.

Food borne disease is also a concern that people associate with eggs. "The fact is that you are more likely to die from a fall than from food poisoning. It's all in putting risk into perspective."

Factors contributing to food-borne disease outbreaks include improper storage and holding temperatures, inadequate cooking, poor personal hygiene, cross-contamination, improper re-heating, and poor storage practices.

A way to make sure that food safety is being practiced and that issues, such as disease outbreaks, are kept under control is to have a HACCP program in place.

"HACCP is a preventive system used to assure the safe production of food throughout the food chain. HACCP is a very important program to have in place," Birkhold said.

She explained that HACCP is not a new concept. "In the early 1970's, NASA decided to produce food and test it. It was then that NASA first decided to let the public know about the plan."

The principles of HACCP include hazard analysis, setting critical limits, taking corrective actions when necessary, record keeping, and verification. "You must understand the data given and make a sound decision based on that data."

She said the U.S. Department of Agriculture also has performance standards when dealing with food safety. Once of these is the regulatory requirements for salmonella. "What they are trying to do is set up for performance standards for food safety on campylobacter." Campylobacter is a bacteria that can be discovered during the processing of food.

She stressed that it's important to understand the process, as well as process control, for controlling bacteria.

Today, consumers are interested in the welfare of the birds, she said. "Consumers are free to decide what products to buy. What they don't understand is that what makes a consumer feel good, doesn't mean it's safe."