ABSTRACT
Food safety refers to protecting food from biological and other sources of contamination. Food security refers to access to food and issues of hunger as discussed in Chapter 11. Food supplies in the United States are generally maintained at high levels of safety-protected from accidental or deliberate contamination-so that citizens seldom give much thought to the subject. For the most part, food safety becomes a public issue only on occasions when outbreaks of foodborne illness or malicious threats make headline news. We may tend to think of food safety issues as primarily pathogens, but in general, food safety is concerned with making sure that food has not accidentally become unsafe to consume from any cause. Thus, in addition to illness-causing pathogens, pesticides, chemicals used in food production, reactions between the food and packaging, or other possible hazards, such as food additives or food allergens, are all items covered under the umbrella of food safety. Intentional contamination is also a food safety issue, although a better term in that case might be food defense.
