This Brief discusses aspects of the increasingly complex production of
legal and reliable food products of non-animal origin. It introduces to
the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the USA (from January 2011),
which requires the food industry to follow risk-based approaches with
stronger self-regulation of food safety through measures such as the
foreign supplier verification programs (FSVPs).
The Brief addresses important chemical hazards of vegetable products:
their peculiar microbial ecology, that can become responsible for the
occurrence of specific foodborne disease outbreaks, and the chemistry of
the involved neurotoxins and other dangerous molecules, that can
potentially lead to lethal pathological reactions.
Finally, the Brief also critically discusses the technology of
ready-to-eat vegetable products and chemical and physical modifications
used for packed products (respiration of vegetables, colorimetric
modifications, etc.).