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Abstract
Salmonella is one of the primary causes of foodborne illness in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that Salmonella causes approximately 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States every year. Despite extensive control efforts, Salmonella continues to pose a significant public health burden, particularly through the consumption of contaminated meat products. The overall goal of this dissertation is to implement evidence-based, risk-based approaches to enhance Salmonella control in various food products, especially in meat products.
This dissertation comprises two main projects. The first project, encompassing two studies, addresses the risk assessment of Salmonella contamination deep tissue lymph nodes (DTLNs). A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to determine the prevalence and concentration of Salmonella in bovine DTLNs by lymph node type, production source, region, and season. A quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model in a processing-to-table continuum of ground beef processing was developed to quantify the relative contribution of DTLNs to human salmonellosis imposed by consumption of ground beef by simulating Salmonella transmission across different stages of ground beef production and consumption. The second project, comprising three studies, provides production and consumer-level solutions to reduce Salmonella contamination in raw chicken, especially in breaded stuffed chicken products (BSRCPs). For the production side, high-pressure processing (HPP) might be an effective application to control pathogen contamination in chicken products. In chapter 3, systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression approaches were performed to evaluate the impact of various factors on the efficacy of HPP in microbial inactivation in raw chicken. In Chapter 4, the effect of HPP at 300–600 MPa for different treatment times (3 and 5 min) on the microbial loads in BSRCPs (APC, coliform, Escherichia coli) and key sensory characteristics (appearance and texture) was evaluated. In recent years, air frying has gained widespread popularity so last chapter aimed to determine the thermal lethality of Salmonella on BSRCPs cooked in different types of air fryers (basket-type and oven-type) at various treatment temperatures (176.7, 190.6, and 204.4 °C) and times (10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 minutes).