Arjun’s and Rahul’s Research Woo!

Contents 1. Growing Food 2. Environmental Factors 3. Processing Food 4. Storing Food 5. Preparing Food

Growing Food Food items have the potential of being contaminated from what they are grown in. Chemicals, fertilizers, manures, and pesticides farmers use can some times infect food. This is something farmers have been trying to solve for a long time. There have been a couple of tries to fix this problem, but no real significant break- through.

Pesticides Pesticides have to be toxic enough to kill insects. However, a pesticide can only be useful at a small dose that causes little no harm to people, animals, and wildlife.

Harmful pesticide and how they affect plants Pentachlorophenol (PCP)is harmful insecticide that interfere with plant’s chemical signaling. Pesticides can kill bees which results in lower amounts pollination. They loose $200 million a year from reduced crop pollination. Pesticides can have some direct harmful effects on plants like poor root hair development and reduced plant growth. Insecticides get rid of insects, where Pesticides get rid of pests.

Environmental Factors Environmental Factors can cause food poisoning by carrying bacteria and parasites into the plant’s soil. Some ways this can happen is from dust, wind and water. This is not really preventable and is a part of nature.

Processing Food These are some examples of not properly processed food: -Raw and undercooked meat and poultry -Raw foods; unpasteurized milk and dairy products, such as soft cheeses -Raw and undercooked eggs. Raw eggs are often used in foods such as homemade hollandaise sauce, Caesar and other salad dressings, tiramisu, homemade ice cream, homemade mayonnaise, cookie dough, and frostings. -Raw and undercooked shellfish -Fresh or minimally processed produce; contaminated water some symptoms of not properly processed foods are:

Illnesses caused by Processed Food -Abdominal pain -Diarrhea -Nausea -Vomiting -Fever -Abdominal cramps -Double Vision -Inability to Swallow -Difficulty Speaking and Inability to Breathe

Storing Food If you store food wrong it could also cause cross-contamination. For example if you were to store meat next to vegetables, then some bacteria could infect the vegetables. This is cross contamination.

Storing Food cont. There are a couple of ways to fix this. One way is to be organized and have the vegetables and meat put in different places in the fridge. This is also kind of easy to fix, but we could improve on it.

Preparing Food This more common place were cross- contamination can occur. One way food can become contaminated during preparation is the cutting board. If someone uses one board for cutting meat and the same board (without washing it) for cutting vegetables. Again we see a common concept. Cross-contamination! One way to prevent this is to wash the cutting board after one use.

Preparing Food cont. Another way food can be contaminated is if it is not cooked right. If you don’t boil your vegetables the bacteria won’t die and could end up infecting you. One is way to prevent this is to boil your vegetables. Maybe another way is to have something in the fridge to prevent contamination in the food.

Cross-contamination Since this came up so many times when we were researching we decided to make a whole other slide for it. As you probably know by know cross-contamination is when bacteria is transferred from food item to another. One way out of the book to prevent cross-contamination is to completely destroy the bacteria before it cross-contaminates. One way to do this is Carbonation.

Carbonation This method takes carbon dioxide gas that has been dissolved under pressure. By taking out the oxygen, bacteria stops growing.

CONCLUSION Growing Food Environmental Factors Processing Food The sections are as followed. Please vote on tw of the following selections to go on more detail on. Growing Food Environmental Factors Processing Food Storing Food Preparing Food Cross Contamination