Keep cool: Project looks at how temperature affects 1xbet online casino safety of school lunches
Thursday, July 14, 2016
A research project housed at K-State Olathe looks at how temperature and cooling techniques used by schools when preparing and storing 1xbet online casino affects the growth of foodborne pathogens.| Download this photo.
OLATHE — Researchers at Kansas State University and K-State Olathe are collaborating on a project that is using temperature to improve the safety of leftover 1xbet online casino in schools and child care centers.
Sara Gragg, a K-State Olathe assistant professor of 1xbet online casino science; Lindsay Beardall, a K-State Olathe master's student in 1xbet online casino science, Lenexa; and Paola Paez, research associate professor of hospitality management at Kansas State University, are looking at how temperature and cooling techniques used by schools when preparing and storing 1xbet online casino affects the growth of foodborne pathogens, such as Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, or STEC.
"Often, schools and child care centers have leftover 1xbet online casino that they save and use again in the next day or two," Gragg said. "That 1xbet online casino needs to be cooled properly so that it does not become a 1xbet online casino safety risk. Bacteria like to grow in 1xbet online casino during the cooling process if the 1xbet online casino is not cooled rapidly enough. We want to prevent that growth."
The multiyear project recently entered its second phase. The project is part of the expansive research portfolio at Kansas State University's Center of Excellence for 1xbet online casino Safety Research in Child Nutrition Programs, of which both Gragg and Paez are researchers.
The center began in 2011 with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 1xbet online casino and Nutrition Services' Office of 1xbet online casino Safety, and is led by faculty from the departments of hospitality management and 1xbet online casino , nutrition, dietetics and health. Kansas State University experts and leaders in 1xbet online casino safety and nutrition conduct research that helps provide a foundation for science-based decisions on 1xbet online casino safety for the more than 2.2 billion meals and snacks served through various federal-funded child nutrition programs. Research from the center influences the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer 1xbet online casino Service, After School Snack Programs and the Child, Adult Care Feeding Programs and more.
While the center and a majority of its research projects are based in Manhattan, Kansas, the cooling project is housed at K-State Olathe, which has a commercial 1xbet online casino service kitchen as well as a specially designed 1xbet online casino safety lab with an adjacent walk-in cooler and freezer.
Researchers use the kitchen to cook rice, chili, taco meat and marinara sauce — staples of child nutrition programs — in accordance to how they would be prepared in the school 1xbet online casino service setting. The prepared 1xbet online casino is then taken to the lab, inoculated and then cooled with a variety of 1xbet online casino cooling techniques used in schools, such as being stored in a walk-in cooler or freezer.
Because pathogens cannot be introduced to the walk-in cooler, researchers are working with surrogate microorganisms that simulate real pathogens, Gragg said. This includes a biosafety level-1 E. coli.
"We're essentially using noninfectious bacteria to simulate the behavior of their infectious counterparts," Gragg said. "This provides us with the flexibility to study harmful pathogens under the same conditions they would appear in 1xbet online casino at school cafeterias, but without the risk of infection."
Once the 1xbet online casino is cooled, researchers then study bacterial populations in the 1xbet online casino over the course of 24 hours.
Gragg and Paez will use the findings to make recommendations about safer 1xbet online casino cooling techniques, which may influence future 1xbet online casino safety policies and regulations. Currently, the team has developed four scientific posters about its findings.
An upcoming third phase of the cooling project may introduce another common foodborne pathogen that the researchers will study.
Additional projects under the Center of Excellence for 1xbet online casino Safety Research in Child Nutrition Programs include:
• A study that looks at how school nutrition employees can change their behaviors and attitudes to improve 1xbet online casino safety. This includes using a storytelling-based approach to influence changes;
• Incorporating a 1xbet online casino safety approach into the nation's efforts to reduce wasted 1xbet online casino in schools by 50 percent by 2030;
• A simulation study about meals used on field trips that looks at using time as a public health control to reduce the risk of foodborne pathogen growth;
• Looking at what 1xbet online casino safety regulations are in place for in-home and business-based child care centers across the U.S. and what standardizations can be made from state to state;
• Multiple training programs, including Serving Up Science, in which 190 school nutrition practitioners from 48 U.S. states have participated in the program.
"Kansas State University has many scientists who have experience in 1xbet online casino safety and childhood nutrition as well as many unique facilities that advance this research," Paez said. "The Center of Excellence for 1xbet online casino Safety Research in Child Nutrition Programs combines that expertise and those facilities that stretch across the university's multiple campuses into a powerful and knowledgeable 1xbet online casino safety source for the nation."
