(00:00:01) Hot dog hot dog hot dog food. Okay, hold your horses. But (00:00:29) a number of years ago. We started working on Alternatives or modifications of formulations to reduce. The amount of nitrite used in cured meat products. I guess this is a good example of a blend of basic and applied research that we would do here in the agricultural experiment station, which is part of the University in Coming up with some potential Alternatives that the industry can use that will benefit the consumer but work that would probably not be done extensively by industry itself or by Regulatory Agencies. It's that kind of worked as sort of Falls between the realm and the charge of either one of those groups and yet it is perfectly fine for us to do for us to make a contribution for our students to work on and for our technical people to work on how we originally when I say we this includes a lot of people some of this work was dr. John sulfus has a doctorate work his Ph.D work here and he's now with us as a post-doctorate for a short period of time one of my colleagues. Dr. Jeannie Allen and me technology worked with with this project actually. At the project in the technology area. We have many graduate students and Technical people that have helped through the last three or four years but early on dr. Sofas and dr. Alan we're working on modified Frankfurter emotions that technological problem looking at substituting soy protein and substituting other materials for the normal Meats Pork and Beef as part of that and they did the technology what kind of product it would make what the texture would be what the flavor would be if it would be acceptable and they found that that a partially substituted soy protein Frankfurter will be accepted by the consumer. It said now this broad of a question would have night, right? Have the same safety effects in a soy part soy wiener or Frankfurter that we have known to expect or have come to expect traditionally from a pork or beef wiener. When I say safety effects nitrite does a number of things in cured meats. It imparts the pink color. It controls the off flavors on storage. It controls rancidity, but it also and probably the most important at least to a food microbiologist. Is it that it protects against the growth and toxin production by clustered and botulinum which upon consumption causes botulism. And our question was would nitrite do the same control of clostridium botulinum in a soy protein Frankfurter that it did in a normal Frankfurter and that's how I got in on the project and that's what we started testing first. We saw that it was equivalent. And then we got on to the study of sorbate about that time historically or chronologically maybe the better word. There was concerned about reducing nitrites from the current levels that are being used now to lower levels of nitrite good because people were concerned about consuming more nitrite than they felt was reasonable for good health. I'm not indicating. The nitrite is unhealthy there have been some studies since that time that implied that nitride maybe a carcinogen those studies are still under evaluation and have not been verified. So I don't want to panic anyone nevertheless. There was concern about nitrite in cured meat products and enough concern to encourage us to do research on sorbate on other alternatives. To nitrite in cured meat products and so we got into this work of incorporating in our case sorbic acid in the emotions and initially with various levels of nitrite and we found a very impressive relationship. And this was one of the very important points of doctor sofas his PhD thesis in that combinations of low nitrite 1/4 the normal level with sorbic acid in a Frankfurter emotion resulted in equivalent or in some cases better protection against the hazards of botulism in in cured in that cured meat emulsion. (00:05:40) This was (00:05:41) of course very encouraging and very exciting. In fact, if we retain the present level of nitrite and combine it with sorbic acid. We get an extension of safety that is four to eight times as good as the normal wieners. (00:05:57) What is that? What is the normal right now? (00:06:00) Oh, that's a good question because I'm sure people are getting concerned that I'm talking about safety wieners. Our products can be abused and when I say abused, I mean held it at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Without Refrigeration for days. That's how we tested them. That's how we test the safety potential abuse and for example Frankfurter emotions without any nitrite or any sort of heat will show toxin around three days of abuse. So we're not dealing with a extremely hazardous prop product of if one handles the frankfurters properly, there is no no Hazard whatsoever. If we add night right at the normal level, we may go six seven eight ten days before we find toxin with the current level of nitrite. So there is a protection level if we add sorbate and low levels and I tried we are similar maybe up to 15 days. If we go with the high levels of nitrate and sorbate we've seen 35 and 40 days of of abuse at 80 degrees Fahrenheit before we get (00:07:20) toxin. So one of the ways you test for the effectiveness of the things you add including sorbate is to take a product and subjected to Abnormal conditions conditions under which we would never ordinarily. Keep meat that is that is a very (00:07:37) routine approach to testing safety of food products often criticized but very very routine. We test food additives in the same fashion. We feed a hundred or a thousand times the normal level of concern of specific additive to see if there are any adverse effects on test animals in our case. We put in a hundred to a thousand times as many clustered and botulinum spores or microorganisms as we would normally expect in the product and then we take the product and abuse it which might be rare but that would be the problem that could result in a potential Hazard the same thing is done in Canning evaluation one when one evaluates the proper thermal process for preserving of (00:08:31) Finger (00:08:31) foods, we normally put in a million times as many organisms as we would normally expect and set our processes on that so that we can extrapolate to a million units rather than one unit. So it's this very standard (00:08:46) approach and the results of This research that least today to have been at least as far as you're concerned in the work here somewhat at least somewhat encouraging (00:08:55) very much. So we from the microbiological standpoint. We think it's very good. Some of the we think it is an alternative. We are not saying and I have nothing on which to base a statement that would say we should remove nitrite or we should not continue at the current level night. Right, but we feel that we have shown that we would not propose eliminating night right except with extremely good labeling the indiscriminate in the indiscriminate elimination or Banning of nitrite from all cured meat. X we think could generate a hazard because people traditionally expect a safety margin people traditionally think of bacon that way as being a very stable product even though that most people will keep it refrigerated constantly from time of processing all the way to the time they fry it traditionally. They feel that bacon has a stability that it could be held at room temperature for of considerable period of time without being a concerned so that if we indiscriminately remove nitrite and don't warn the people and educate the people extremely well and all those people we have this potential option of that rare case where someone would accidentally abuse the product drop it between the refrigerator in the counter. Pull it out a few days later the product might still look good and could be hazardous because of this we feel that indiscriminate Banning of nitride from from cured meat products is not a wise move. We feel that the reduced amount of nitrite for those people who are concerned about nitrite plus an alternative like sorbet door sorbic acid gives us the safety from a potential abuse Hazard and yet continues to give us the product that we are more traditionally used to that we can with a little bit of nitrate the low-level nitride get the flavor get the texture get if it has some very slight effect and control the ruined City and and all the (00:11:12) other aspects but in using sorbate at least for the time being as far as your research and other Here as been concerned. It has to be used in conjunction with some amount of nitrate or nitrite sedate (00:11:26) that what we have seen sorbate or sorbic acid by itself is not sufficient to control clostridium botulinum toxin production. At abuse temperatures when I say not sufficient in that it is not essentially equivalent of the current level night, right? It may be better than nothing at all. But it is not at the level of what we currently anticipate or expect from the high level of (00:12:02) nitrite How likely is it that that many people are going to abuse a product anywhere near as much as you do in your Laboratories, you mentioned even somebody dropping a some lunch meat down between the refrigerator and a counter. It's just a guess but I would think that most people would be inclined to throw that away if it had been down there for more than an hour or two. Do you find that that's different and and if so, I guess I'm trying to get at is I'm wondering how much of the of the preservative that would be used in a product would be to the company's. To be able to produce something that would stay on the shelf a long time. And on how much of it would be really a value to the consumer (00:12:49) the well though you opened up a number of the statements there. First of all, the the addition of sorbate and nitrite in combination to the normal nitrite may increase the shelf life slightly but not in my opinion significantly to to encourage or or to stimulate a company into doing that surely is merely to extend shelf life now. May I point out that extending shelf life of a product? Is to the benefit of the consumer as well as the company on occasion consumers feel that extended shelf-life means that they get an older product and therefore it's to the benefit of the company more than to them in general reduced shelf life of product means the product becomes more expensive. It doesn't reduce the prophets. The prophets are at a small enough level that we do shelf life energy generally ends up with an increased price of the product which is reflected directly back in the consumer. We went through this with labeling of products and pull dates. There was a group that wanted to pull all meat products at two weeks in the shell and two weeks in the supermarket and many meat products refrigerated meat products have a shelf life of two months and all this would have done is meant there was a lot of waste that was unnecessary and would have merely the price of cured meat products of that type here in Minnesota And so that there's it's one has to consider that it is through the advantage of the consumer as well as the company now back to the point of abuse. We may be speaking of a very rare situation, but let's say one and a hundred thousand. and we met Be dealing with a rare situation where the people would consume it. Let's deal with wieners rather than bacon because bacon is fried and may destroy the toxin before they consume it dealing with wieners so that maybe only one in ten or one in a hundred of those people consume the wieners cold and not boiled now, that's one in I guess I worked up to one and 10th 10 million. Now, that's only 20 people now 20 people dying a botulism and a year is not very much when one considers Comparison to automobile debts on the highway. Maybe it's only important to those 20 people that died of botulism. But that's in our opinion a sufficient Hazard to be considered. It seems like it's important enough to be considered in general. I believe that if food safety attitudes are such that one does take those kinds of risks as a very important set of risks and tries to eliminate them or reduce them to such a low level that they are inconsequential might I point out in regard to the education of those people that with a very good educational program. We could probably educate people to treat all traditionally cured me type products with extreme safety with Extreme Caution and in preserve their safety by being sure to keep them cold treating them just like a raw meat product or non nitrite cured me product. However, the people that are most likely to abuse the product indiscriminately are also the people that are generally the most difficult to educate the most difficult to reach with the proper education programs. So it's a it's a difficulty the 99.999 percent of the people that we could reach with the proper educational programs are probably those people who are less likely to abuse products in the first place because of their attitudes towards handling a variety of things and learning Etc. It's that .001 percent of the people that are difficult to reach with any kind of communication or educational program or convinced that they should be concerned are probably The people who are most likely to also abuse a product in this criminally and not worry about it because they have not received education and other (00:17:47) aspects whose responsibility do you think it is to carry out that kind of education do you think it's up to the manufacturers of the foods or up to universities like this one? (00:18:00) Yes. I have I do this when when given a choice, I frequently say, yes, and and that that saves me making a decision. I believe that the manufacturer has to put information if I tried for example is removed from the product. I believe it has to be identified that this is a known I tried product must be refrigerated, but I believe it is the role of the University that the role of the extension service which is part of the university the role of the the public health people with part of the university the role of the nutrition education tension people part of the Personally to educate the population. I feel that that aspect of continuing education of extension of out Outreach to the population is one of the key roles of a (00:18:51) university. Let's go back to the taste aspect as you well know there was a story in one of the local newspapers that suggested that some of the initial taste tests that were being conducted by the FDA of products that contained contained a combination of nitrites and sorbate were unsatisfactory in the result something like eight out of 25 people developed some sort of reaction. They were wasn't clear but I'm wondering if you could talk about that for a little bit. (00:19:22) Let's let's start that one over again. First of all, make sure that USDA is credited properly for running the tests rather than FDA that USDA has conducted a rather major plant study on bacon. Manufacture with reduced nitride 40 parts per million nitride plus point to six percent potassium sorbate. This study included botulism analysis for safety and included or studies of nitrosamine production upon frying and it included a variety of other chemical analysis plus what we would call an organoleptic analysis which includes flavor texture and a general appearance of the product. I want to point out that many studies like this have been done previously not by the USDA and we did a the first just under the wire but the first major plant study with Cudahy Foods in Monsanto company just prior to the USDA study. The USDA study had for plants. We only ran with one plant. We don't have quite the facilities or the dramatic spread of the USDA. Our study was slightly different but USDA had a group of people evaluate the product in Beltsville, and then also contracted with North Carolina State University to do a flavor profile. To evaluate the various products. This is a trained group of individuals who identify specific taste notes and specific qualities of the various products far more extensive flavor evaluation taste evaluation than one would normally do with a consumer type panel it. We we also had a consumer type panel and there have been a number of consumer type evaluations organoleptic valuations done previously. (00:21:38) What (00:21:38) we understand and this is totally hearsay on my part and the unfortunate part of the whole situation is that there the data are not available and it is not clearly identified as to what happened or why it happened or what it was associated with but from what I understand one individual who worked with the product in USDA experienced some kinds of responses in the nasal passages or in the facial area that would reflect an allergic reaction. At least. That's what it was called or at least a response to an irritant. Another individual who is handling the bacon apparently had some response on their fingers that would indicate an irritant. There's no way to know whether this was just a normal situation whether it was some other aspect of the individual bacon because one of the bacons was packed with monosodium glutamate and spices and and there is no way to know whether it was just the bacon whether it had something to do with the sorbets whether it has something to do with the combination of Knight Rider sorbate or whether it was the time of year and I'm not trying to put it down there were responses that FDA now is going to look into Some People to People USDA and apparently five or six or seven down at the taste panel experienced responses that they could not identify. We don't know if it was just a kind of bacon and they had not experienced that before or whether it had something to do with the sorbet door the nitride or the combination but it is being investigated by FDA to make sure that there is not something existing here that has not been identified previously now might I point out that there are in excess of a hundred and fifty other individuals who have done this and no one. Has expressed a problem with organoleptic responses that indicate irritants or indicate allergic (00:23:46) reactions using eating or taste testing the the same product but (00:23:53) eating or taste testing product with sorbate and nitrite in it, not the identical bacon. And so we have we have heard of nothing like this before. They've been a number of organoleptic test sand runs done that pilot plant level as well as our big plant level. There were 50 people at Oregon State University. Who did the organoleptic evaluation on our product. No responses were know that they're there no other negative responses to an apparent irritant or allergen anything like that have been reported elsewhere not they didn't might not have existed but none have been reported or identified. No one and other people have been queried have been polled and nothing like that has been existing elsewhere now. We hope that it does not cause a panic when I say we hope I'm talking I think of the food industry and that we've had so much negative response. To anything in Foods processed foods food additives quote-unquote chemicals and foods that people are really concerned about a number of things in Foods. My personal concern about other individuals concerns on food is that we continue to mention frequently unnecessarily or without appropriate reasons that food is dangerous or bad or the specific food additive is bad for somebody or doesn't do a proper thing or causes a problem upon subsequent investigation. It is unfounded or can't be substantiated. And what we've done is the classical Cry Wolf many many many times to a point were individual consumers no longer are responding properly to some things that they maybe should be. And about and one of these days we may have in my opinion a real problem. That we will want to warn consumers about and at that point they will say oh, it's just another comment. I've seen this response get greater and greater over the last two or three years. They have heard so many negative things that are that are not substantiated subsequently. They have heard negative things about saccharine and many people are not ready to give up second. They've heard so much negative about nitride and yet it's not a substantiated negative situation to date they've heard so many negative things about a number of things that they have consumed regularly. That they are beginning to think that this is just another item another Cry Wolf situation one of these days one of these days we may have a situation where we will want them to listen and they may not listen anymore because they've heard this on and on that that concerns me this allergic response quote unquote if you would to sorbate and bacon may or may not be true, but it's gotten headlines twice. And it involves three or four people now if it is not substantiated if it is related to some other item and therefore dies out. We will not see a headline saying there is no allergic response to sorbet tonight, right? That would be impossible to do and what we will see is a number of people who are in the back their minds. Remember a headline in the Minneapolis Tribune. It says allergic response may cause problems for introduction of this kind of product. I don't know if it will affect the people who sell bacon. I don't know if it'll affect the people who want to put in sorbate in the bacon. My concern is that it it generates a distrust in a food industry that by any value evaluation whatsoever has produced safer food than anywhere else in the car in the world and American food processing industry in the food that is given in general production processing distribution of food to the American people is phenomenal. The safety of the food is far beyond anyone anyone's expectations essentially anywhere else in the (00:28:37) world. How much of your research here in food science is funded by private organizations and how much comes from the public sector (00:28:48) first of all most of our professors research personnel. At the professional level on the regular payroll are funded in part if I could use a rough estimate, maybe 50% by the experiment station. So that most of us are bye-bye salary at least halftime research workers who were most of us are on 12-month appointments and most of us spend half or more of our time doing research and our salaries are funded by a combination of federal and state money through the experiment station. The other half of our salaries would be coming off of the standard university budgets that involve teaching and research From that aspect, but the research is not clearly identified with the experiment station so that the our funding of salaries is mostly State and slot in somewhat federally supported in addition to that. We have some support for research staff research materials and supplies albeit, very small from the experiment station to further support our efforts there. Then beyond that we have grants or contracts or gifts from Private Industry and from federal agencies. We have one variable I think is a very large Grant from the Food and Drug Administration to run a large thermal processing evaluation center that dr. Fluke operates a large contract from the FDA. We have a USDA Grant to work on nutritional aspects of certain processed foods a grant not part of the experiment station, but independent Grant to work on that there's a USDA Grant to work on the on aging and the elderly people and nutrition and is relates to them so that we have grants from federal agencies grants from National Institutes of Health Etc as Well as funding through the experiment station, then in addition to that we have funding through through Private Industry and I would say our private industry and I'm sure that I could find this in and looked this up. I would guess private funds May constitute 10 to 25 percent of our operating research activities not salaries, but are the operating funds which with which we buy equipment and supplies and food and that kind of thing. (00:31:53) Well, the reason I asked her at least one of the reasons of course has to answer the the question or statement that some might make that well, of course, you know, he will he will defend or make statements that encourage taking a long look at the use of certain preservatives because after all his salary comes from whichever Corporation and And I think there are some people who believe that at least a great portion of some people who do food science research, even though they may do it at a university that it comes from Grants from large private (00:32:30) corporations. I think one of the things that points to our what I think an ethical credibility is that we are frequently criticized by both the private and public sector for being biased in favor of the other group and to me that's that's a an indication that we are holding our own in be incredible because we frequently are considered tools of industry for doing the same work that people consider us being nothing more than regulatory pawns and I think to me that indicates credibility because we report what we see I think our contracts that we write our memorandum of agreement with Private Industry are so Terribly one-sided that they couldn't possibly be interpreters being Pawns of Industry. We have a contract or a memorandum of agreement through the experiment station for all those kind of pieces of work that says we are permitted to publish whatever we find we will let the grantor for the grantee group review it but we will publish what we think is should be published but they cannot publish anything without our permission. It was an extremely one-sided aspect. They cannot use the name of the University of Minnesota without our permission. It's a very one-sided aspect to keep our credibility as researchers people who feel that we are In a tool of either industry or regulatory agencies are whoever is granting the money I do believe. Did I are not aware of the reasons for our getting that that money if we become a nothing more than a yes person nothing more than an individual that does what that group wants us to do our scientific technological credibility drop and our value to them is no longer there.