Sausage poisoning

Until a few years ago there was no association made between meat poisoning known as botulism and poisoning in other foods. Sausage poisoning was known to be a very definite poisoning several... 

Production of botufinum toxins proceeds under anaerobic conditions, and the optimum conditions for their formation in foods are pH 4.8-8.5 and temperature of about 30 °C, but toxins are also produced at lower temperatures. Botufinum toxins have been known since the 18th century when they were described as a sausage poison , because they arose from improperly handled or... 

Biogenic amines are commonly found in fermented meats. Histamine poisoning has not been associated with this type of product, however histamine has been found at low levels in some fermented meats (Dierick et al., 1974 Taylor et al., 1978 Vidal et al., 1990 Shalaby, 1993 Maijala et al., 1993). The most common amine found in fermented meats is tyramine (Trevino et al., 1997 Eerola et al., 1998), which is found at higher concentrations than other amines. The toxic level of biogenic amines is 100 mg per 100 g of product (Arnold et al., 1978). Taylor et al. (1978) and Vandekerckhove (1977) found amounts of histamine up to 55 mg per 100 g, putrescine up to 40 mg per 100 g, cadaverine up to 5.6 mg per 100 g, tyramine up to 151 mg per 100 g, and p-phenylethylamine up to 6.1 mg per 100 g in dry sausage. Table 6.9 lists the... 

Bakshi, S., Fahey, J., and Pierce, L. (1967). Sausage cyanosis Acquired methemoglobinemic nitrite poisoning. N. Engl. J. Med. 277,1072. 

Acidified food products have been produced safely for many years without heat treatments, but it has become evident that the organic acid(s) present in such products have made a huge contribution to achieve this (Zagory and Garren, 1999). Acidic foods (apple cider, dry-fermented sausage, mayonnaise, and yogurt) have all been implicated in E. coli 0157 H7 food poisoning outbreaks (Jordan, Oxford, and O Byrne, 1999). 

Sodium nitrite is added to many meats (e.g., bacon, ham, frankfurters, sausages, and cxrrned beet) to inhibit the growth of Clostridium botulinum (the bacterium that produces botulinus toxin) and to keep red meats from turning brown. (Food poisoning by botuiinus toxin is often fatal.) In the presence of acid or under the influence of heat, sodium nitrite reacts with amines always present in the meat to produce A/-nitrosoamines. Cooked bacon, for example, has been shown to contain A/-nitrosodi-methylamine and A/-nitrosopyrrolidine. 

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