The Academy did not stop at advising families to avoid raw dairy. It renewed its call for a ban on the sale and distribution of raw milk and raw milk products, including raw cheeses, arguing that their consumption increases the risk of life-threatening infections. The policy statement also directly confronts one of the most persistent marketing claims surrounding raw milk: that it offers superior health benefits compared with pasteurized products. According to the Academy, those claims are not supported by scientific evidence. Pasteurization, a process of heating and then cooling milk that has been in use for more than a century, dramatically reduces the risk of infection without stripping away the nutritional value that families rely on from dairy.

The numbers behind the Academy’s concern are striking. Lead author Adam J. Ratner, MD, MPH, FAAP, noted that nearly half of illnesses caused by raw dairy consumption occur in people under the age of 20, and that a significant share of those cases are in children under 5. These illnesses, he emphasized, can be severe and can lead to life-threatening complications. The vulnerability of young children is not incidental: their immune systems are still developing, their body weight is small relative to the dose of pathogen they may ingest, and complications such as severe dehydration from diarrheal illness or kidney failure from certain strains of E. coli can escalate quickly in pediatric patients.

Unpasteurized milk is a well-documented carrier of some of the most dangerous foodborne pathogens known to medicine. The policy statement lists Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Brucella among the serious organisms transmitted through raw dairy. Each of these bacteria can cause hospitalization, life-threatening illness, miscarriage, or death, and the risks are concentrated in young children, pregnant people, and individuals with weakened immune systems. Listeria monocytogenes is particularly formidable because it can grow even at refrigerator temperatures, meaning contaminated dairy stored properly in a home kitchen can still become more dangerous over time. Salmonella and Campylobacter are among the most common causes of bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide, while Shiga toxin-producing E. coli can trigger hemolytic uremic syndrome, a condition that destroys red blood cells and can cause kidney failure in children.

Pregnant people face especially high stakes from foodborne infection. The policy statement notes that the incidence of listeriosis is estimated to be 12 to 14 times higher during pregnancy than in the general population, a reflection of the immune changes that pregnancy induces. Listeria infection during pregnancy can result in miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or severe illness in newborns, outcomes that make even a low probability of contamination unacceptable from a public health standpoint. Because Listeria can cross the placenta, a mother may experience mild or even unnoticed symptoms while the fetus suffers devastating consequences. This asymmetry between maternal illness and fetal harm is a central reason obstetric and pediatric guidelines consistently single out unpasteurized dairy as a food to avoid entirely during pregnancy.

The most consequential update in the new statement concerns H5N1, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that has swept through poultry populations globally and, beginning with the 2024 United States dairy cattle outbreak, demonstrated an ability to infect cows. The Academy highlights emerging evidence that H5N1 may represent a new and potentially serious risk associated with raw milk. Research indicates the virus can be transmitted from infected dairy cattle into milk, where it can reach high concentrations and remain detectable in refrigerated raw milk for up to five weeks. That persistence is unusual and troubling: a virus surviving for more than a month in a chilled, nutrient-rich medium has ample opportunity to reach consumers, especially in distribution chains that lack pathogen testing.

During the 2024 U.S. dairy outbreak, infectious H5N1 virus was detected in nearly one-quarter of raw milk samples in affected areas. To date, there are no confirmed human cases of H5N1 infection resulting from the consumption of raw milk, and the Academy is careful to state this. Nevertheless, it characterizes the virus as a credible, emerging threat. The distinction between documented transmission and credible risk is important in virology: influenza viruses are capable of crossing species barriers, and the mammary gland infections observed in dairy cattle established a novel route by which a respiratory pathogen of birds could contaminate a staple food. Pasteurization, which inactivates influenza viruses effectively, closes that route for conventional dairy, but no such barrier exists for raw products.

The regulatory landscape in the United States remains fragmented. Despite the well-documented health risks, the sale and distribution of raw milk products remain legal in at least 27 states. Raw milk is defined as milk obtained from cows, goats, or sheep that has not undergone pasteurization, the heating process designed to eliminate harmful bacteria and other pathogens. Federal law prohibits the interstate sale of raw milk for human consumption, but intrastate sales fall under state jurisdiction, producing a patchwork in which a family’s exposure to raw dairy risk depends largely on geography. The Academy’s renewed call for a ban on sale and distribution is aimed squarely at this patchwork, arguing that voluntary warnings have not eliminated a preventable source of severe illness.

The scientific case for pasteurization rests on both microbiology and nutrition. The process typically involves heating milk to a temperature sufficient to inactivate vegetative bacterial pathogens and enveloped viruses, followed by rapid cooling to slow the growth of any surviving organisms. Decades of comparative studies have found no meaningful nutritional deficit in pasteurized milk relative to raw milk; the proteins, calcium, and vitamins that make dairy a dietary staple survive the treatment essentially intact. What pasteurization removes is the microbial load, including organisms that may be present even in milk from healthy-appearing animals, since udder infections and fecal contamination during milking can introduce pathogens without any visible sign. Co-author Mark R. Corkins, MD, FAAP, addressed the perception gap directly, saying that parents may choose raw milk because they have heard it is healthier or more natural, but that the scientific evidence tells a different story. Pasteurized dairy products, he said, provide the same essential nutrients without exposing children and families to preventable infections from dangerous bacteria and viruses, and for infants, children, and pregnant people they are clearly the safest choice.

The policy statement was developed through the Academy’s standard process, in which statements written by medical experts reflect the latest available evidence and undergo several rounds of peer review before approval by the AAP Board of Directors and publication in Pediatrics. It will be featured during a presentation on October 5 at the AAP 2026 National Conference and Exhibition in San Diego, where Dr. Ratner is scheduled to discuss the policy during a Meet the Red Book session at the San Diego Convention Center. For families navigating conflicting claims about raw dairy, the Academy has also published a consumer-facing resource, “Raw Milk: What Parents Need to Know About the Risk,” through its HealthyChildren.org platform. The core message of the updated guidance is unambiguous: whatever the appeal of raw milk on the shelf, the pathogens it can carry, from Listeria and E. coli to a potentially pandemic-capable influenza virus, are preventable hazards, and pasteurization remains one of the most effective and time-tested public health interventions in the food supply.

Subject of Research: Health risks of unpasteurized (raw) milk and dairy products for children and pregnant people, including emerging H5N1 avian influenza contamination

Article Title: American Academy of Pediatrics warns of dangers in consuming raw milk, dairy products

Article References: American Academy of Pediatrics warns of dangers in consuming raw milk, dairy products. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: raw milk, pasteurization, American Academy of Pediatrics, H5N1 avian influenza, foodborne illness, Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, pregnancy, children's health, dairy cattle, public health policy

Fermentation is one of humanity’s oldest food preservation technologies, and in West Africa it remains a cornerstone of daily nutrition. Maize is processed into staples through successive soaking in water, while African locust bean seeds are boiled and fermented to produce pungent, protein-rich condiments that flavor dishes across Nigeria, Benin, and beyond. Bacillus species are central players in these transformations. Their enzymes, including alpha-amylase, cellulases, and proteases, break down complex polysaccharides and proteins into sugars, amino acids, and peptides, generating the characteristic textures and flavors of these products. But the same biochemical versatility that makes Bacillus invaluable to food producers also means these bacteria thrive in the waste streams that fermentation generates, and some members of the genus carry a darker capability: the production of enterotoxins.

The research team, led by Oluwafemi Bamidele Daramola, focused on ten commercial fermentation sites in Ile-Ife, in Osun State, Nigeria, five dedicated to maize processing and five to African locust bean. Between March and June 2022, they aseptically collected top-horizon soil cores from depths of five to thirty centimeters at two spots within each site, targeting areas where liquid and solid effluents had been dumped. Back in the laboratory, the samples were serially diluted, plated on nutrient agar, and incubated, after which colonies displaying typical Bacillus morphology were isolated and identified through biochemical testing based on Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology. In total, 62 Bacillus isolates were recovered, spanning sixteen species, including Bacillus firmus and Bacillus cereus at 16 percent each, Bacillus licheniformis at 15 percent, and Bacillus megaterium at 10 percent, alongside rarer species such as B. decolorationis, B. nealsonii, and B. schlegellii.

The critical question was not simply which Bacillus species were present, but what genetic weaponry they carried. Using polymerase chain reaction, the researchers screened every isolate for genes encoding three major enterotoxin systems associated with the Bacillus cereus group: the non-hemolytic enterotoxin complex, with subunit genes nheA, nheB, and nheC; the hemolysin BL complex, detected through the hblC and hblD subunit genes; and the Bacillus cereus enterotoxin T gene, bceT. DNA was extracted by boiling bacterial cells and centrifuging away the debris, then amplified using specific oligonucleotide primers in single and multiplex PCR reactions. Amplified products were separated on ethidium bromide-stained agarose gels and visualized under ultraviolet light, allowing the team to determine precisely which toxin genes each isolate possessed.

The results were striking. The bceT gene appeared in 32.26 percent of the isolates, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 23.1 to 41.4 percent. The hemolysin BL subunit genes were detected in 40.32 percent of isolates, and the non-hemolytic enterotoxin genes in 38.71 percent. Breaking the nhe complex down further, nheA was present in 38.70 percent of isolates, nheB in 35.48 percent, and nheC in 37.09 percent. Most alarming was the finding that 32.26 percent of the recovered Bacillus species carried all three categories of enterotoxin genes simultaneously, meaning nearly one in three environmental isolates had the complete genetic apparatus for producing the full spectrum of diarrheal toxins assayed. Only 59.68 percent of the isolates lacked any of the targeted genes altogether.

The architecture of these toxin systems proved as interesting as their prevalence. In classical descriptions, the three subunit genes of either the hbl or nhe complexes occur together within a single operon, and structural studies have shown that the tripartite toxin components assemble sequentially on target cells and are not interchangeable between toxin types. Yet in this study, the researchers found isolates deficient in one or two subunit genes, with 23 Bacillus encoding both hblC and hblD while two carried only hblD, and a single isolate encoding only nheA. This suggests that genes within an operon can be present and potentially function independently, a deviation from the canonical model that echoes findings from other research groups. The team also detected bceT, a gene traditionally associated with B. cereus, in other Bacillus species, consistent with earlier reports of this gene in B. coagulans, B. thuringiensis, B. alvei, and B. brevis, a distribution that has been attributed to horizontal gene transfer, the process by which bacteria exchange genetic material across species boundaries.

The study builds on and extends earlier work by some of the same researchers, who had screened 74 Bacillus isolates from cassava processing environments in Nigeria and found that 50 percent carried bceT, 47.3 percent carried hblD, and 37.8 percent carried nheA. Although the current study recovered fewer isolates, it documented a higher proportion encoding the nheB and nheC subunits. Together, the two investigations paint a consistent picture: enterotoxigenic Bacillus are not rare curiosities in Nigerian food processing environments but common residents of the waste streams those environments generate. Comparable surveys in other settings, from Tunisian foodstuffs to dairy products, vegetables, meat, and fermented millet, have likewise documented enterotoxin genes among Bacillus isolates, indicating that the phenomenon is global rather than local.

Why does this matter for public health? The route of transmission for pathogenic bacteria typically runs through contaminated soil, water, and plants, particularly vegetables. Effluents from these fermentation sites are discarded indiscriminately into open channels, uncompleted structures, undeveloped land, and along streets, where runoff can carry bacteria into surface and groundwater, onto crops, and into contact with people. Previous research has documented that fermentation effluents pollute soil and water, breed mosquitoes and other parasitic insects in stagnant channels, and contribute to the burden of insect-borne disease in Nigeria. The new findings add a microbial dimension to this environmental hazard: if toxin-gene-carrying Bacillus colonize processing equipment, raw materials, or finished products, they could trigger foodborne illness through point-source or non-point-source contamination, turning a traditional food practice into a vehicle for disease.

There is an important caveat to the study’s conclusions. The Bacillus species were identified presumptively using morphological and biochemical characterization rather than molecular methods, which means the species assignments carry some uncertainty. The researchers themselves acknowledge this limitation and call for molecular characterization of the enterotoxigenic isolates in future work to clarify their identities and potential. Gene presence also does not automatically equal toxin production; the PCR approach detects genetic potential rather than expressed protein. Nevertheless, the detection of enterotoxin genes in such a high proportion of environmental isolates is a legitimate warning sign, particularly because hbl toxins are known to produce extensive hemolytic and cytotoxic effects, and nhe toxins, while somewhat less deleterious, act through a similar pore-forming mechanism and have been shown to activate the NLRP3 inflammasome in host cells.

The authors argue that the solution lies in sanitation and regulation rather than in abandoning fermentation itself. They call for awareness programs aimed at artisanal fermenters, highlighting the dangers of indiscriminate effluent disposal and teaching appropriate disposal methods, alongside national and local regulatory guidelines with strict compliance requirements for the responsible handling of maize and African locust bean waste. In a country where fermentation centers serve a rapidly growing population using both traditional and mechanical techniques, the stakes are considerable. Fermented foods offer genuine nutritional and health benefits, and Bacillus species will remain indispensable to their production. The challenge, this study makes clear, is to manage the waste those processes generate before the environment transforms a beneficial microbiology into a public health liability.

Subject of Research: Enterotoxigenic Bacillus species in fermentation effluent-contaminated soils at maize and African locust bean processing sites in Nigeria

Article Title: Potential health and safety risk of enterotoxin-producing Bacillus species isolated from fermentation effluents discharged into the environment

Article References: Daramola, O. B., Torimiro, N., Omole, R. K., Okugbesan, T. O., Olubamise, O. J., Akinsola, I. T., & Akinfolarin, O. O. (2025). Potential health and safety risk of enterotoxin-producing Bacillus species isolated from fermentation effluents discharged into the environment. Discover Toxicology, 2(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44339-025-00020-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44339-025-00020-2

Keywords: Bacillus, enterotoxins, fermentation effluents, food safety, foodborne illness, Nigeria, PCR, hemolysin BL, non-hemolytic enterotoxin, bceT, environmental contamination, fermented foods

Organic and sustainable farming operations increasingly depend on biological soil amendments of animal origin to build soil health, improve nutrient availability, and sustain crop productivity without relying on synthetic fertilizers. Poultry litter, a mixture of manure, bedding material, feathers, and feed residues, is one of the most abundant and widely used of these amendments. In Georgia, one of the nation’s leading poultry-producing states, approximately two million tons of poultry litter are generated annually, making it an economically and agronomically important resource for vegetable growers across the state. Sweet onions, a signature Georgia crop, are frequently grown in soils amended with these materials.

The research team, which included Harsimran Kaur Kapoor of the University of Georgia and Abhinav Mishra of the university’s Department of Food Science & Technology, set out to answer a deceptively simple question: how long does E. coli remain viable in field soils treated with different poultry litter-based amendments, and how do environmental conditions modulate that survival? The answer matters because pathogenic strains of E. coli and related foodborne pathogens can persist on produce surfaces and within soil ecosystems long after the amendment is applied, creating a window of potential contamination that growers must manage.

Across two growing seasons, the researchers observed a consistent pattern. Soils amended with heat-treated poultry pellets and soils amended with composted poultry litter both supported longer survival of E. coli than untreated control soils. Heat treatment and composting are both intended to reduce pathogen loads in manure-based products, yet the study indicates that the amended soil environment itself, even when the amendment has been processed, can create conditions more favorable to bacterial persistence than unamended soil. Nutrient availability, moisture retention, and organic matter content are among the factors that researchers generally associate with improved microbial survival in amended soils, and the study’s results align with that broader understanding.

The weather findings add a layer of complexity that the authors argue is essential for risk management. The influence of weather differed between the two growing seasons analyzed, pointing to the importance of year-to-year variability. Higher humidity was associated with greater bacterial survival, while stronger winds generally reduced survival. Rain and warmer soil temperatures could promote bacterial persistence, whereas higher air temperature and wind speeds tended to reduce it. Taken together, the results suggest that extreme weather events, rather than average seasonal conditions alone, may play an important role in determining how long bacteria can survive in agricultural soils.

This distinction between averages and extremes carries real consequences for how food safety risk is modeled and managed. A season with a modest average temperature but several intense rainfall events may pose a different contamination profile than a season with a higher average temperature and steady winds. Risk-based approaches that rely solely on seasonal or monthly climate summaries could therefore underestimate the survival window of pathogens following specific extreme events. The authors note that understanding how amendment practices interact with extreme weather may help inform risk-based management approaches under real field conditions, where growers cannot control the weather but can adjust amendment type, timing, and application practices.

The crop at the center of the study is not an arbitrary choice. Onions have been linked to several major foodborne illness outbreaks in North America in recent years. In 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigated an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 associated with slivered onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers. Earlier incidents include a 2020 outbreak of Salmonella Newport linked to red onions across the United States and Canada, and a 2021 outbreak of Salmonella Oranienburg tied to whole fresh onions imported from Mexico. These outbreaks resulted in thousands of reported illnesses and hundreds of hospitalizations, underscoring that allium crops, long considered lower risk than leafy greens, can serve as vectors for serious foodborne disease.

Sweet onions present particular production considerations. They are typically grown in sandy soils with careful irrigation management, harvested after months in direct contact with the soil environment, and often consumed raw or with minimal processing, which means no kill step intervenes between field and consumer. Any pathogen that persists in the soil or on the bulb surface at harvest therefore represents a direct route into the food supply. Understanding whether and how poultry litter amendments extend the survival window of E. coli in these soils gives growers and regulators a concrete variable to work with when designing pre-harvest intervals, amendment application schedules, and water and soil testing regimes.

The regulatory context is also evolving. The authors note that regulators continue to seek data on the food safety implications of biological soil amendments of animal origin, a category that includes raw and processed manures, composts, and pelleted products. Field-scale studies like this one provide the kind of empirical evidence needed to calibrate standards that are both protective of public health and workable for growers who depend on these amendments for soil fertility. The interaction between amendment type and local environmental conditions that the study documents suggests that a one-size-fits-all national standard may be less effective than frameworks that account for regional climate, weather variability, and dominant amendment practices.

For Georgia’s sweet onion industry, and for produce growers in poultry-heavy regions more broadly, the study offers a practical takeaway: the combination of amendment choice and weather exposure deserves active attention in food safety planning. Growers who apply heat-treated poultry pellets or composted poultry litter may want to consider how upcoming rainfall, humidity, and wind patterns could extend or shorten pathogen survival in their fields. As extreme weather events become more frequent and more intense, the researchers’ central finding, that it is the extremes rather than the averages that shape bacterial persistence, is likely to grow in importance for anyone working at the intersection of soil health, agricultural productivity, and the safety of the fresh produce that reaches consumers’ tables.

Subject of Research: Survival of E. coli in poultry litter-amended soils under varying weather conditions in sweet onion production

Article Title: Study finds poultry litter-based soil amendments and weather influence E. coli survival in Georgia sweet onion production systems

Article References: Study finds poultry litter-based soil amendments and weather influence E. coli survival in Georgia sweet onion production systems. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: E. coli, poultry litter, soil amendments, sweet onions, food safety, extreme weather, Georgia agriculture, Risk Analysis, compost, foodborne illness, pathogen survival, produce safety

The stakes are enormous. Foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Listeria pose particular dangers to children, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals, and failures in quality control can trigger recalls, reputational collapse, and even criminal prosecution for food companies. Traditional verification methods, which rely heavily on laboratory analysis, are slow, expensive, and prone to human error. As global supply chains stretch across continents, contamination introduced at a farm in one country can spark illness outbreaks among consumers thousands of kilometers away, making consistent oversight a formidable challenge. The authors contend that AI, a hallmark of the Industry 4.0 revolution, offers the speed, scale, and precision that conventional approaches cannot match.

At the heart of this transformation lies machine learning, the branch of AI that allows algorithms to learn patterns from data rather than following fixed rules. The review describes how machine learning techniques, spanning supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and reinforcement learning, are being deployed to monitor and predict food safety hazards. Convolutional neural networks excel at analyzing image data, while algorithms such as support vector machines and k-nearest neighbors have been applied to biosensors that detect antibiotic residues and even differentiate Salmonella concentrations in smartphone-based lateral flow assays. Unlike chromatography or spectroscopy, which deliver reliable results but demand lengthy sample preparation and technical expertise, machine learning models can flag suspicious samples in near real time, tracking contaminants from pesticides, additives, toxins, and pathogens.

Artificial neural networks, the most widely adopted AI architecture in food assessment, are proving especially versatile. The review notes their success in predicting quality attributes of products ranging from coconuts and potatoes to olive oil and dried mango, and in restoring nutritional parameters such as frying time, temperature, and oil content for fried fish. In agriculture, AI-enabled sensors evaluate soil quality and detect plant diseases before they spread, while studies cited in the paper report pest and disease detection in maize with around 75 percent accuracy and coffee bean grading reaching 96 percent accuracy. These predictive capabilities allow farmers and producers to intervene early, reducing waste and protecting harvests.

Computer vision brings a different dimension to quality control: sight. Automated inspection systems now detect and eject foreign objects, soil, and even aflatoxin mold in roasted peanuts by selectively distinguishing infected from normal grains through spectral imaging. Vision-guided robotic systems sort and pack food with a precision that human workers, laboring in hazardous processing environments, cannot safely match. The review highlights a meat processing case study in which AI-driven image recognition achieved contamination detection rates above 98 percent, automatically removing suspect products from the line. Beyond the factory, similar systems have been used to grade mushrooms on multiple quality attributes and even to track honeybee activity, coloration, and temperature in apiculture research.

A quieter revolution is unfolding in the realm of text. The food industry generates mountains of unstructured data, including regulatory reports, equipment maintenance logs, supplier certifications, and a torrent of customer reviews and social media posts. Natural language processing, the review explains, can automate the extraction and validation of compliance data, interpret complex standards such as FDA and ISO 22000 requirements, and perform sentiment analysis that reveals recurring complaints about freshness, taste, or packaging before they snowball into quality crises. In one cited beverage manufacturing case, an NLP-based document system cut audit preparation time by 40 percent while minimizing compliance errors, freeing quality teams to focus on the highest-risk areas.

Sensors and the Internet of Things supply the raw data that makes all of this intelligence possible. Electronic noses and tongues, once laboratory curiosities, now capture temperature, humidity, and aroma profiles in production and distribution, reporting sensory events as electronic signals. Cloud-connected IoT devices allow storage operators to maintain optimal transit conditions and estimate shelf life with unprecedented frequency, while integrated blockchain systems such as the Food Trail blockchain create immutable, decentralized records that trace products from fishing boats to retail shelves. A seafood supplier case study combining AI with blockchain reported a 45 percent improvement in traceability accuracy and a 30 percent reduction in fraud, demonstrating how transparency can be engineered into high-risk supply chains.

Perhaps the most striking application is AI’s role in predicting outbreaks before they happen. Predictive analytics models trained on historical and real-time data can forecast when and where foodborne illness risk will spike, accounting for temperature fluctuations, seasonal trends, and geographic patterns. NLP systems monitoring news, health forums, and social media have detected clusters of gastrointestinal complaints linked to fresh produce, enabling preventive action before formal reports were filed. In a dairy processing case study, AI sensors tracking temperature, pH, and bacterial counts reduced spoilage by 25 percent and improved quality consistency by 30 percent, while AI-enhanced environmental monitoring of processing plants has been credited with significant reductions in contamination rates.

The authors are candid about the obstacles. Globalized supply chains, shifting consumer preferences for additive-free foods, fragmented regulations across jurisdictions, climate-driven disruptions, chronic undertraining of workers, and the financial constraints facing small and medium-sized enterprises all complicate the AI transition. There are ethical dimensions too: because true contamination in any given sample is vanishingly rare, machine learning systems risk cascading false rejections, and biases embedded in training data can go unexamined. Existing AI regulatory frameworks, the review warns, often fail to address the unique requirements of food safety applications, and opaque or unaccountable models remain too hazardous to deploy outside controlled environments.

Still, the trajectory is unmistakable. From classifying barley grains and identifying fraudulent ingredients to automating cleaning verification in breweries and tracing contamination through blockchain-verified ledgers, AI technologies are reshaping what food safety means in the twenty-first century. The review concludes that continued progress will depend on developing consumer-friendly sensors that communicate product freshness directly to shoppers, harmonizing international standards, and building transparency into every algorithm. If those challenges are met, the researchers argue, Industry 4.0’s intelligent machines could deliver what traditional methods never could: safe, nutritious, and verifiably high-quality food for a global population at scale.

Subject of Research: Artificial intelligence applications for food safety and quality assurance in the food industry

Article Title: Artificial Intelligence for Food Safety and Quality Assurance: Technologies, Applications and Future Directions

Article References: Artificial Intelligence for Food Safety and Quality Assurance: Technologies, Applications and Future Directions. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.72377

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.72377

Keywords: artificial intelligence, food safety, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, Internet of Things, blockchain, food quality assurance, foodborne illness, smart sensors, traceability, Industry 4.0

The raw feeding movement traces its modern popularity to the 1993 publication of Ian Billinghurst’s book Give Your Dog a Bone, which argued that dogs thrive on bones and raw meat reminiscent of an ancestral canine diet. Today the category encompasses home-prepared BARF recipes, prey-model regimens, commercial frozen and chilled complete diets, freeze-dried products, premixes combined with raw meat, and raw meaty bones. The review stresses that these categories are not interchangeable. They differ in nutrient formulation, ingredient traceability, pathogen-control procedures, storage requirements and owner handling, and studies that lump all raw diets into a single exposure may obscure important variation in risk.

On the nutritional front, the review finds that adequacy is genuinely product-specific. In one analytical study of 33 preprepared raw dog foods labelled as complete, every single product had at least three mineral values outside the FEDIAF reference range. Selenium fell below the minimum recommendation in all 33 products, zinc, manganese and copper were frequently below recommended intakes, 45.5 percent of products exceeded the maximum calcium recommendation, and 57.6 percent exceeded the maximum iodine value. The authors caution that these deviations identify quality-control concerns within the sampled products but do not by themselves establish clinical deficiency or toxicity in the dogs consuming them, and the findings should not be generalized to every commercial raw product on the market.

Home-prepared raw diets fare less well in the literature. Analyses of published recipes, drawn from a broader body of work on home-prepared diets, have identified frequent deficiencies in calcium, zinc, copper, vitamin D, vitamin E and choline. Ingredient rotation, a common owner strategy, does not guarantee nutritional completeness, because adequacy depends on quantitative formulation and nutrient bioavailability rather than variety alone. Puppies are especially vulnerable to inappropriate calcium and phosphorus concentrations, and excessive liver or unbalanced supplementation can produce vitamin and trace-mineral excesses. Professional guidance therefore supports formulation and periodic review by a veterinarian with advanced nutrition training, particularly for growth, disease management or long-term exclusive feeding.

Where raw diets do show consistent short-term effects is in digestibility and faecal characteristics. Controlled studies have repeatedly reported higher apparent total-tract digestibility of protein and fat in raw, mildly cooked or human-grade fresh diets compared with extruded kibble, along with smaller, firmer stools and reproducible changes in faecal microbiota and fermentation products. Yet the review urges technical caution in interpreting these numbers. The diets being compared rarely differ only in processing; they typically vary simultaneously in ingredients, fat, fibre, starch, moisture and energy density, so higher digestibility coefficients cannot be attributed to the absence of heat treatment alone. Human-grade mildly cooked diets can produce similar effects, and no universally accepted healthy canine microbiome signature exists against which these compositional differences could be judged beneficial or harmful. Crucially, long-term clinical superiority of raw feeding over nutritionally complete conventional diets has not been demonstrated.

The microbiological picture is where the evidence is strongest and most troubling. Because raw meat receives no thermal kill step, contamination can persist from slaughter through processing, transport and household handling. Surveillance studies across Europe and the Americas have repeatedly detected Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Yersinia enterocolitica and other enteric bacteria in commercial raw pet foods. The largest recent United Kingdom retail survey tested 380 frozen raw products collected between March 2023 and February 2024. In the dog-food subset, Salmonella was detected in 24.2 percent of samples, Campylobacter in 14.4 percent, culture-confirmed STEC in 13.4 percent and MRSA in roughly 10 percent, while ESBL- or AmpC-producing E. coli were found in 21.5 percent of the dog-food samples tested for that outcome. Across the full dataset, 28.7 percent of products exceeded statutory microbiological criteria.

The review is equally clear that freezing and freeze-drying are not reliable microbial kill steps. Viable bacteria have been recovered from commercial freeze-dried raw products, and available evidence indicates that drying may reduce rather than eradicate contamination. Parasites add another layer of concern, including Toxoplasma gondii, Sarcocystis species, Neospora caninum and, depending on geographic origin and offal source, Echinococcus. An Italian observational study found that dogs reported to consume raw meat regularly had nearly threefold higher odds of Toxoplasma seropositivity, supporting exposure plausibility even though raw meat cannot be confirmed as the sole source. Domestic freezers may not achieve validated time-temperature combinations uniformly, so parasite control requires source-specific rather than generic assumptions about freezing.

Dogs fed raw diets can shed enteric pathogens without showing any clinical signs, creating a household exposure pathway through food preparation, contaminated bowls and surfaces, faeces and close contact. Multiple observational studies have linked raw feeding to increased faecal carriage of Salmonella and antimicrobial-resistant E. coli, including third-generation cephalosporin-resistant and multidrug-resistant strains in United Kingdom dog populations. Whole-genome sequencing has identified closely related resistant Enterobacterales in companion animals and their household members, supporting recent sharing or a common source, although genomic relatedness alone cannot establish the direction of transmission. Documented human outbreaks underscore that severe outcomes are possible: a cluster of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 infections was linked to raw tripe pet food, and Canadian authorities investigated an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant Salmonella associated with raw pet food and cattle contact. The review notes, however, that outbreak reports establish possibility and severity rather than the population-level burden of raw-pet-food-associated human disease.

On the environmental side, the evidence is the least raw-diet-specific. Life-cycle assessments of pet food generally show that impacts are driven principally by the type and quantity of animal-derived ingredients, with ruminant and human-edible meat dominating land use and greenhouse-gas emissions. A recent United Kingdom analysis of 996 dog foods, including 34 raw products, estimated a greater than 65-fold range in greenhouse-gas intensity across products, with prime-meat content an important driver. Frozen products require cold-chain energy during distribution and home storage, whereas freeze-drying demands substantial manufacturing energy but reduces transport mass and avoids frozen storage, and few matched assessments have quantified these trade-offs. The authors conclude that a poultry or by-product-based raw food may compare favourably with a beef-rich premium kibble, so the raw format itself cannot be assumed intrinsically more impactful.

The review’s overarching message is that raw meat-based diets warrant product-specific and household-specific risk assessment rather than categorical judgement. For owners who choose to continue raw feeding, veterinary counselling should prioritize nutritionally complete formulation appropriate for life stage, manufacturer quality assurance, validated pathogen-reduction processes such as high-pressure processing that reduce but do not eliminate risk, uninterrupted cold chains, strict hygiene including bowl cleaning and handwashing, prompt faeces disposal, and explicit consideration of household vulnerability. Households containing infants, pregnant individuals, older adults or immunocompromised people face a lower margin of safety, and raw feeding may be inappropriate when their exposure cannot be reliably prevented. The authors call for adequately powered prospective cohorts, batch-level surveillance that distinguishes raw diet categories, whole-genome-sequencing source-attribution studies, validation of pathogen-reduction technologies, and matched life-cycle assessments before the long-term benefits and risks of raw feeding can be compared with high certainty.

Subject of Research: Nutritional adequacy, microbiological safety, antimicrobial resistance and environmental sustainability of raw meat-based diets for dogs within a One Health framework

Article Title: Raw meat based diets for dogs and their nutritional and One Health implications

Article References: Tufarelli, V., & Bozzo, G. (2026). Raw meat based diets for dogs and their nutritional and One Health implications. Discover Animals, 3(1), Article 84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44338-026-00249-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44338-026-00249-0

Keywords: raw meat-based diets, dog nutrition, One Health, Salmonella, antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic pathogens, pet food safety, BARF diet, foodborne illness, life cycle assessment, Toxoplasma gondii, veterinary nutrition