Foodborne Diseases: Overview of Emerging Food Technologies

Newer food technologies provide opportunities for innovative ways for producing safer and more nutritious foods. Pasteurization today can be achieved through irradiation, membrane filtration, and processing through high-pressure, ohmic heat, pulsed electric field, and pulsed light. Some technologies, such as microwave cooking, sous vide and modified atmosphere packaging have been readily adopted; others, such as genetically modified organisms and future animal cloning, to produce species with desirable characteristics, prove more controversial. The safety of any new food technology, including the fast-developing nanotechnology research, needs to be carefully evaluated before its use is allowed.