Is our food safe enough?

Working as a graduate student these past three years, I want to share something about my research and its  potential impact on our lives. I published this paper last year entitled “Differential heat stability of amphenicols characterized by structural degradation, mass spectrometry and antimicrobial activity" on the Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists).

HEY! We are resistant to your antibiotics! (photo source) 

As mothers, I understand we're very concerned on the health of our family and loved ones. I'm sure you have wondered how safe the food we've been feeding our kids are. Are they safe enough and devoid of any harmful bacteria or perhaps with an equally bad antibiotic residues?

We all know that consuming unnecessary or too many antibiotics may disturb or kill the natural bacteria found in our guts. These natural flora by the way protect our guts from the colonization of pathogenic/opportunistic bacteria and their subsequent entry to our blood stream. On the other hand, too much use of antibiotics contributes to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria.  With antibiotic resistance plaguing our society these days, we don't wonna get sick and then suddenly the antibiotics that are supposed to kill these harmful organisms are no longer effective. To site some of these scary superbugs, you have probably heard about the infamous MRSA. I bet everybody heard about the fatal and resistant E. coli infection that recently created havoc in Germany/Europe too. Way too scary right?

In my study, three antibiotics used for animal treatment and which may cause antibiotic residues in food were heated and examined for its heat stability. Since we usually cook the meat before eating them, it is very important to know whether the antibiotics when heated lost its potency or not. If it's degraded after cooking, well it's good news since it would be safer for us, the consumers. But if it's not, then it's definitely a bad news. It means we are unknowingly consuming these antibiotic residues all along. In other words, we are hosting a breeding ground for antibiotic resistant bacteria to develop.

Various quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to evaluate the heat stability of  these drugs. They were boiled not only on water but also on salt water, soy sauce, chicken meat, and even on a borate buffer (where the data was later discarded) to check its heat stability in various matrices, which is more or less similar to the real cooking scenario.

Results showed that although amphenicols were basically degraded after heating, florfenicol (a cousin of chloramphenicol ~ used to treat typhoid fever, meningitis, typhus), an antibiotic used to treat poultry, swine and cattle diseases was still able to produce another related compound with potential pharmacological activities. Meaning, the heat-generated compound could still kill the test bacteria (S. aureus) even after heating, how potent is that.


These findings are very alarming for us because cooking of food generally made us think it renders the food safe enough to eat, but then we are wrong.  Some antibiotic residues in food may either persist even after cooking or may even produce another active compound after heating. How weird is that!

How to avoid such presence of antibiotic residues then? Prevention is the key. Animal raisers have a big responsibility to follow the antibiotic withdrawal periods of these antibiotics. Meaning, they should make sure that the drug is gone from the animal's system before they sell its meat, eggs, milk and dairy products. Our government agencies (FDA, USDA) are also monitoring such presence or absence of antibiotic residues in food. However, we can't always be so sure that every food being displayed in the market has been examined.  Again, prevention is the key. Purchase of antibiotic-free or organic food then is far better and safer for us.


Are you aware of the dangers of consuming too much antibiotics? How about antibiotic resistance then?