Food Safety: The Importance of Analysis & Testing

What is Food Safety?

Firstly, what is food safety? Food safety is the objective where people can enjoy safe and nutritious food without causing illness.

Food allergy is caused by over-reaction of our immune systems. Pesticide residue in food could cause human endocrine disruptions. Our food will expire and smell badly mostly due to the pathogens (e.g., E. coli) in our food. The pathogens in food is also a major source of food-borne gastroenteritis.

So, food being what makes us function, in such a way that it makes us exist, it must have quality. The food that enters our house either in its raw form or fully cooked must have the best condition, do you agree?

Thus, food safety is not only necessary, but also essential.

Food safety is primarily important. Not only for those who manufacture, but also for those who consume. Once the exact composition of the food is obtained, it becomes possible to warn about consequences as well as precautions.

In other words, the analysis, with regard to food safety, is important not only for quality, but also for care and inspection.

Is there any way we can detect those contaminants in our food?

The most instinctive way is using our five senses (vision, smell, taste, tactile, and hearing). We can identify whether the fruits are matured and fresh by their colour. We can also smell our food to decide whether they have gone bad – if the food smells awful we usually will avoid it. We will also avoid eating bitter food because that usually indicates toxicity. We can tell the fruit is not fresh if it is extremely soft to the touch.

And we can knock on watermelon and listen to the sound to judge if it is matured. Even though testing food using our five senses is fast, it requires lots of experience and is subjective and qualitative.

Therefore, we need scientific instruments to objectively test our food.

Food safety, through food analysis, identifies various aspects of food. But this ranges from its chemical composition, its interaction with the human body and even its packaging.

Below, you can see what is analyzed:

• Chemical composition;
• Action in the organism;
• Food and caloric value;
• Physical properties;
• Chemical properties;
• Physiological properties;
• Possible adulterants and contaminants.

Not only is food safety necessary, but it also exists in various types, with the most varied functions. After all, food is rich in possibilities, and thus presents numerous paths of analysis, as explained in this article.