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How an antelope could alleviate poverty in South Africa
Published in Kristina Roesel, Delia Grace, Food Safety and Informal Markets, 2014
Shashi Ramrajh, Kristina Roesel, Cheryl McCrindle, Alexander Heeb, Kohei Makita, Delia Grace
Commercially hunted game destined for export originates mostly from privately owned land or government-owned natural reserves. The hunting normally takes place during the South African winter months when temperatures are low enough to keep meat spoilage at bay. If cooling facilities are readily available, hunting can be done all year round. The game ranches that produce for export are required to register with the local controlling authority and are issued with a licence which is renewed every year. Harvesting teams – comprising the driver/hunter, the spot-light operator and the field meat inspector – and game depots must be registered too. Before the start of a harvest, the vehicles and equipment need to be inspected in order to secure compliance with valid standards.
Vital Signs
Published in Lenore Manderson, Elizabeth Cartwright, Anita Hardon, The Routledge Handbook of Medical Anthropology, 2016
Lenore Manderson, Anita Hardon, Elizabeth Cartwright
Like the distribution of infectious disease, so the influence of climate change on human health is already felt particularly in poor countries among the poorest people. Drought, changes in precipitation and floods all affect water quality and quantity for household use, impacting agricultural production, crop choice, hunting and fishing, and so food security. In Argentina, drought compounds other socioeconomic stressors as families respond to crop failure, loss of livestock and indebtedness by moving to farming areas with better current climatic conditions, or abandoning farms and relocating to cities (Wehbe et al. 2007). Global warming in the Arctic, as a very different example, has dramatically narrowed the times when people can hunt, the speed at which they must work to prevent meat spoilage, and the impact of this on other economic activities and on food reserves for the rest of the year. As one man from interior Alaska reflected, “we’ve got such a short window that when that window’s there everybody’s got to go out … the seasons are really putting a crimp on traditional subsistence activities of going out when it’s appropriate, when the weather, you can take care of the meat and so on” (McNeeley and Shulski 2011: 469) (see Johnson’s case study in Chapters 11). Lack of wild food forces dietary change, and with it, increasing dependence on nutritionally poor, expensive store-purchased food, contributing to the increased incidence of non-communicable diseases (Chapter 7). Poor nutrition and the increased risk of cardiometabolic disease is only one dimension of the impact of changing climate on human health. As Hans Baer (2008) illustrates, there is already an increase in respiratory illness from wind-borne dust, and increased diarrheal diseases, cholera, leptospirosis and E. coli bacterial infection as a result of chronic water pollution and flood-related contamination. There is also, already, changes in the habitat of vectors and the epidemiology of parasitic infections and arbo-viruses (Alley and Sommerfeld 2014; Bezirtzoglou et al. 2011).
In situ characterisation of biofilms formed by psychrotrophic meat spoilage pseudomonads
Published in Biofouling, 2019
Nirmani N. Wickramasinghe, Joshua T. Ravensdale, Ranil Coorey, Gary A. Dykes, P. Scott Chandry
To date, most of the researches conducted on spoilage pseudomonads have used an artificial environment supplemented with essential nutrients to study meat spoilage bacteria. The metabolic pathways of microorganisms can vary depending on the external environmental conditions under which they grow and as a result, metabolic by products can also differ (Drescher et al. 2013). Some studies have concluded that meat could be the ecological niche of P. fragi (Champomier-Vergès et al. 1996). Therefore, it is important to characterise its biofilm formation under in situ conditions.
Presence of potent inhibitors of bacterial biofilm associated proteins is the key to Citrus limon’s antibiofilm activity against pathogenic Escherichia coli
Published in Biofouling, 2023
Songeeta Singha, Rajendran Thomas, Abinash Kumar, Devarshi Bharadwaj, Jai N. Vishwakarma, Vivek Kumar Gupta
The attachment of potential spoilage and pathogenic bacteria to food contact surfaces and subsequent biofilm formation represents a serious challenge to the food industry, including the meat industry, which may lead to cross-contamination of the products, resulting in lower shelf life and transmission of diseases. Foodborne pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes together with common meat spoilage bacteria such as Pseudomonas Spp. grow predominantly as biofilms on most of their habitats, rather than in planktonic state. It has been observed that biofilm formation enhances a cell’s resistance to antimicrobials compared to the planktonic cells which in turn increases the survival rate of the biofilm producer in a food processing environment (Giaouris et al. 2012). In order to eliminate microorganisms found on food contact surfaces, disinfection procedures using antibiotics and other chemical have been extensively used. However, the emergence of resistance against conventional antibiotics in microorganisms and the foul smell and toxicity of the residues of the disinfectant are of critical concern and thus indicate the profound need to find out suitable and natural alternative to be used in food processing. Considering the benefits of natural products, several plants/plant derived compounds are widely in use in therapeutic practices, especially among Indian, Chinese and African populations (Di Marco et al. 2021). Such molecules/compounds are also known to be non-toxic, cost effective and agents with high degree of applicability in food systems (Thomas et al. 2016). It has been well documented that several plant extracts used in traditional practice confer extensive antimicrobial activity against foodborne pathogens and spoilage microorganisms, including the bacteria that produces biofilms (Gonelimali et al. 2018). According to earlier studies, Salvadora persica and Curcuma longa showed significant antimicrobial activity against Streptococcus mutans (Al-Sohaibani and Murugan 2012), while roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), clove (Syzygium aromaticum) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) have shown significant effects against E. coli, Salmonella enteritidis, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans (Gonelimali et al. 2018). Essential oils(EOs) of herbs and spices have also shown biocidal properties against microbial biofilms of Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella enterica and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Knowles and Roller 2001). The biocidal properties of these plants could be attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, essential oils, tannins and terpenoids, which possess antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.