The Microbiological Quality of Selected Food Products

Abstract

DEVELOPMENT of microbiological standards for the sanitary control of food products has been considered in recent years by the committee on environmental health of the California Conference of Local Health Officers. The committee concluded that standards based on bacterial counts associated with disease, although desirable, were not feasible at present. It seemed practical to proceed to establish standards based on bacterial counts in foods associated with current production practices. Such a standard might specify the permissible number of bacteria in an acceptable food product. In order to decide whether such a microbiological standard should be selected and the range which it would set, public health workers needed some basic data. The State department of public health was asked to plan and coordinate a preliminary study to provide basic information. The health departments of Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego Counties agreed to collect food samples, make necessary field observations, and do bacteriological testing. The objectives of this study were to determine the ranges of bacterial counts in selected foods obtained from the usual commercial marketing The authors are with the California State Department of Public Health. Dr. Hartmann is assistant chief, division of laboratories, Mrs. Thomas is a bizstatistician, and Mr. Hokom is a food and drug inspector. channels and to search for any correlations ,between such results and selected field observations. Methods