Handbook of Beef Safety and Quality

Make sure your beef harvest, production, and processing methods meet the highest standards

Handbook of Beef Safety and Quality is a comprehensive guide to the impact and importance of pre-harvest/production, harvest, and further processing controls, methods and practices on safety and quality—with commodity beef as the target market. This unique book was developed with the help of American Meat Science Association members to create a safety and quality handbook for the beef industry as it moves toward a consumer-driven market that values flavor, palatability, convenience, nutrient value, and price. The book also includes an extensive glossary, tables and figures, examples of sensory evaluation ballots, and descriptions of USDA quality grade and age verification requirements.

The public’s increased concerns about food safety and health risks in the wake of numerous instances of food-borne illness in the past 20 years (E. coli, campylobacteriosis, yersiniosis) and the events surrounding outbreaks of Food and Mouth Disease (FMD), Bovine Spongiform Enchephalopathy (BSE) and Avian Influenza (Bird flu) have led to a more conscious awareness of sound quality assurance practices by food producers and a commitment to management strategies that inspire consumer confidence. The Handbook of Beef Safety and Quality examines pathogen control in animal production, chemical, physical, and biological hazards that pose threats to beef during slaughter and fabrication, the relationship of disease to performance and quality, the need to develop quality-focused supply chains, enhancing beef demand in domestic and international markets, beef carcass quality, sensory attributes, beef muscle palatability, and consumer preferences.

Topics addressed in the Handbook of Beef Safety and Quality include:

• direct-fed microbials
• antimicrobial intervention
• immunomodulation
• residue avoidance
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Systems (HACCP) implementation
• injection site lesions
• mouthing and skeletal maturity
• consumer demand models
• consumer perceptions of quality
• and much more!