Public Health

Hungry after a long day, you reach for that takeout container of fried rice from where it’s been sitting on your counter for the last four days. But a few hours later, you’re in trouble—at least, your stomach is. The culprit behind your food poisoning is a bacterium called Bacillus cereus (or B. cereus ) , which was hidden in the grains of rice you’d eagerly consumed. Rice left out at room temperature, like the container you just ate, can become unsafe to eat due to bacteria

As intimidating as it sounds, microencapsulation may seem like some crazy aeronautic operation in sci-fi movies, but it is actually an innovative tool used in the food industry. When designing food products for their flavor, nutritional value, and shelf-life, it is important to consider how the chemical composition of a product influences is success in distribution, especially when its ingredients may be susceptible to degradation from the surrounding environment. To prevent

In the early 20th century, America was plagued. Not with disease but with nutritional deficiency, specifically iron deficiency. The population, at the time, had been suffering from widespread cases of iron deficiency anemia (Mitchell, 2024) , which is a condition where one's body cannot produce enough hemoglobin because of the lack of iron, leading to reduced oxygen delivery throughout the bloodstream and symptoms of dizziness, fatigue, and shortness or breath. With high rat

Some of the most consumed herbs and spices were popularized due to their medicinal properties. Turmeric, for example, was first used in India over 4000 years ago in a system of holistic medicine called Ayurveda. This versatile spice was used to improve digestion, relieve arthritis, to inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms, etc. It was uncovered in its chemical composition that turmeric contains the compound curcumin, which is known to inhibit signal transduction pathw

Have you ever opened up your phone and found another notification of food become Hepatitis A, Salmonella, or norovirus infected? Unlike...