Department of Civil Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2019 Nov 15;691:252-262. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.064. Epub 2019 Jul 5.
Various antimicrobial interventions are applied sequentially in the beef processing industry to reduce microbial load on beef products by using intensive inputs (e.g., chemicals, energy), high strength wastewater, and potentially result in meat discoloration. This study serves as the first analysis to jointly evaluate environmental and economic assessment with its microbial load reduction of proposed antimicrobial systems in the U.S. beef processing industry to identify relatively sustainable systems that minimize environmental and economic impacts while providing microbial safe meat. Specifically, forty potential sequential antimicrobial systems were proposed and evaluated from three perspectives: microbial load reduction, environmental, and economic impacts, by meta-analysis, life cycle assessment, and operational cost analysis orderly. The results show that the antimicrobial systems applying steam pasteurization during the main intervention offer high microbial load reduction (>4.2 log CFU/cm reduction from a hypothetical initial contamination at 5.0 log CFU/cm). Human health impact (31.0 to 65.6%) and ecosystem toxicity (3.6 to 12.5%), eutrophication (11.9 to 15.5%) and global warming (6.4 to 22.2%) are the main contributors to the overall environmental single score among the forty antimicrobial systems. Antimicrobial chemicals (up to 82.8%), wastewater treatment (up to 12.7%), and natural gas (up to 10.7%) are the three major drivers of operational cost for sanitizing 1000 kg hot standard carcass weight (HSCW). Devalued (discolored) meat due to contact with heat from steam pasteurization or hot water wash has a considerable increase in economic ($4.5/1000 HSCW) and environmental (especially at farm stage) impacts. Certain antimicrobial systems (e.g., water wash followed by steam pasteurization) were found to be more promising with satisfactory effectiveness, better environmental and cost performance under uncertainty (1000 Monte Carlo simulations). Results from this study can guide the U.S. beef processing industry to advance sustainability while protecting human health from foodborne illness.
各种抗菌干预措施在牛肉加工行业中依次应用，通过密集投入（例如化学品、能源）、高强度废水来减少牛肉产品上的微生物负荷，并可能导致肉变色。本研究首次联合评估了美国牛肉加工行业中拟议抗菌系统的环境和经济评估及其对微生物负荷的减少，以确定相对可持续的系统，这些系统在最小化环境和经济影响的同时提供微生物安全的肉类。具体而言，通过荟萃分析、生命周期评估和运营成本分析，从三个角度（微生物负荷减少、环境和经济影响）依次提出并评估了四十种潜在的连续抗菌系统。结果表明，在主要干预措施中应用蒸汽巴氏杀菌的抗菌系统提供了高的微生物负荷减少（从假设的初始污染 5.0 对数 CFU/cm 减少>4.2 对数 CFU/cm）。人类健康影响（31.0%至 65.6%）和生态系统毒性（3.6%至 12.5%）、富营养化（11.9%至 15.5%）和全球变暖（6.4%至 22.2%）是四十种抗菌系统中整体环境单得分的主要贡献者。抗菌化学品（高达 82.8%）、废水处理（高达 12.7%）和天然气（高达 10.7%）是对 1000kg 热标准胴体重量（HSCW）进行消毒的运营成本的三个主要驱动因素。由于与蒸汽巴氏杀菌或热水清洗的热接触而导致的变质（变色）肉对经济（每 1000 HSCW4.5 美元）和环境（特别是在农场阶段）的影响都有相当大的增加。某些抗菌系统（例如，水洗后蒸汽巴氏杀菌）在不确定性下（1000 次蒙特卡罗模拟）被发现具有更令人满意的效果、更好的环境和成本性能，因此更有希望。本研究的结果可以指导美国牛肉加工业在保护人类健康免受食源性疾病的同时推进可持续性。
