Distribution, Prevention, and Control of Emerging Food Contamination

Food safety is a huge concern as it is critical to public health. These concerns are amplified by the diversity of emerging contaminants detected as a result of poor processing, handling, and packaging of food products. Also, factors like climate change, improved processing technologies, and environmental pollutants put food products at risk of contamination. In addition, co-occurrence of these contaminants can increase the health risk to consumers of contaminated food. This chapter seeks to discuss selected emerging food contaminants, including biotoxins, pesticides, and microplastics. The distribution of these contaminants in food matrixes will be discussed with special emphasis on how they can be prevented and controlled.