A Qualitative Assessment of Toxoplasma gondii Risk in Ready-to-Eat Smallgoods Processing

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most common parasitic infections of humans and other warm-blooded animals. In most adults, it does not cause serious illness, but severe disease may result from infection in fetuses and immunocompromised people. Consumption of raw or undercooked meats has consistently been identified as an important source of exposure to T. gondii. Several studies indicate the potential failure to inactivate T. gondii in the processes of cured meat products, This article presents a qualitative risk-based assessment of the processing of ready-to-eat smallgoods, which include cooked or uncooked fermented meat, pâté, dried meat, slow cured meat, luncheon meat, and cooked muscle meat including ham and roast beef. The raw meat ingredients are rated with respect to their likelihood of containing T. gondii cysts and an adjustment is made based on whether all the meat from a particular source is frozen. Next, the effectiveness of common processing steps to inactivate T. gondii cysts is assessed, including addition of spices, nitrates, nitrites and salt, use of fermentation, smoking and heat treatment, and the time and temperature during maturation. It is concluded that processing steps that may be effective in the inactivation of T. gondii cysts include freezing, heat treatment, and cooking, and the interaction between salt concentration, maturation time, and temperature. The assessment is illustrated using a Microsoft Excel-based software tool that was developed to facilitate the easy assessment of four hypothetical smallgoods products.

Toxoplasma gondii in Commercially Available Pork Meat and Cured Ham: A Contribution to Risk Assessment for Consumers

“…In relation to the other product analyzed, dry-cured ham, there is little knowledge of the effects of several processing conditions on the inactivation of the parasite, such as organic acids, nitrites and nitrates, or the combination of salt concentration, time, and temperature during its maturation (24). Sommer et al (25) showed that encysted T. gondii survived for 4 days in 8% NaCl, but neither this group nor Work (28) could demonstrate viable parasites in T. gondii-infected pork subjected to various curing processes.…”

Development of a Tool for Evaluating the Risk of Health Damage by Meat-borne Parasite Infection

“…G. lamblia) 7) , Toxoplasma gondii 8,9) , Anisakis spp. 10) , Trichinella spiralis 11,12) , Taenia solium cysticercus 13) , and Taenia saginata 14) .…”

“…10) , Trichinella spiralis 11,12) , Taenia solium cysticercus 13) , and Taenia saginata 14) . In these studies, most of the risk assessments employed quantitative approaches, such as probabilistic analysis using Monte Carlo modeling 5,14) , hazard impact analysis 6,7,9) , scoring risks 8) , risk profiling 10,11,13) , and exposure assessment 12) .…”

Toxoplasma gondii in Meat and Food Safety Implications - A Review

“…Tissue cysts are the terminal lifecycle stage in the intermediate host and are immediately infective. In some intermediate host species, including most livestock, they may persist for the life of the host, being consumption of raw or undercooked meat products containing tissue cysts a major risk factor associated with human toxoplasmosis (Dubey & Beattie, 1988;García et al, 2006;Hill, 2007;Mie et al, 2008). Toxoplasma has historically been associated with pork meat but a recent case-control study by CDC found the leading foodborne risks to be eating raw ground beef, rare lamb or locally-produced cured, dried or smoked meat (Jones et al, 2009).…”