Prebiotic and Probiotic Approaches to Improving Food Safety on the Farm and Their Implications on Human Health

Abstract

Human health is a broad category that encompasses the entirety of the food production system. Livestock production practices have important effects on human health because livestock not only are a primary food source but also can be the source of pathogenic bacteria that may enter the food chain indirectly. As government regulation and public scrutiny restrict the prophylactic use of antibiotic and antimicrobial interventions, other techniques must be used to reduce the burden of animal-borne pathogenic bacteria entering the food system. Prebiotics (isolated compounds that enhance natural microflora and thereby decrease pathogens) and probiotics (live microbes that are administered to livestock to enhance microbial diversity and crowd out pathogens) represent two unique opportunities for alternative measures in pathogen reduction. This review addresses the link between animal production and human health, the agricultural sources of pathogenic organisms, and the probiotic and prebiotic approaches that have been evaluated in an effort to reduce carriage of foodborne pathogenic bacteria by livestock.Keywords: food safety, livestock, prebiotic, preharvest intervention, probiotic 1 Proprietary brand names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by the USDA implies no approval of the product and/or exclusion of others that may be suitable.