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INTRODUCTION
Food is surrounded by dangerous agents and conditions that can make people ill.

As multiple handling and modern processing methods lengthen the journey
from farm to table,  the opportunities for food to become contaminated and/or
spoiled increase. The veterinary food inspection  specialist helps protect the food
utilized by the military by insuring sanitary control of food establishments
handling food for military use. This course discusses these sanitary controls.

Foods undergo deterioration of varying degrees in their sensory characteristics,
nutritional value, safety, and aesthetic appeal. Most foods, from the time they are
harvested, slaughtered, or manufactured, undergo progressive deterioration that,
depending upon the food, may be very slow or so rapid as to render the food virtually
useless in a matter of hours. This presents a problem to the Department of Defense
because food supplies have to be purchased well in advance of anticipated usage.
Large quantities of food are lost each year due to deterioration. The problem is due to
the perishable nature of food, as well as to the rather lengthy Defense subsistence
supply chain. Due to these factors, veterinary food inspection specialists are tasked
with recognizing deterioration in subsistence and making recommendations to preclude
public health problems and financial losses to the Government.

How do bacteria reproduce? Does the bacterial cell contain a nucleus? What are the shapes of bacteria?
If you cannot answer these questions now, you should be able to when you have completed this course,
and you should also know the answers to many other questions. For those of you who already know
this material, let it serve as a review.

Why are we interested in bacteria? Because some bacteria are capable of waging war
on the human race and some bacteria are capable of benefiting our lives. We need to know the difference.

Bacteria are microorganisms and microorganisms are the smallest of all organisms; for example, 2,000 of them can be lined up across the head of a common pin. In this subcourse, we will be concerned with those tiny organisms that are unfriendly, because they are responsible for a large percentage of spoilage in foods. We believe it is important to know about those microorganisms that cause food deterioration so that we can eliminate deterioration in foods before it occurs.