Antibiotic susceptibility profiles of ropy slime-producing Leuconostoc mesenteroides isolated from cooked meat products

The transfer of antibiotic resistance via the food chain is a global concern. Nevertheless, more attention is required to non-pathogenic strains, such as spoilage bacteria, which could transmit genes to pathogens. Although Lactic Acid Bacteria are microorganisms generally recognized as safe, Leuconostoc mesenteroides may reach and maintain high concentration levels on the surface of cooked products and ready-to-eat products throughout the entire shelf life. It is therefore important to consider the possibility for this species to carry antibiotic- resistance genes. The present research deals with the antibiotic susceptibility profile of strains of L. mesenteroides, isolated from vacuum packaged cooked meat products. In this study, the antimicrobial susceptibility of L.mesenteroides, previously isolated from cooked ham, was investigated through disk diffusion assay according to CLSI standards. Isolated strains from ready-to-eat food show high levels of resistance to ampicillin and methicillin and, according to a settled panel of 21 antibiotics, the antibiotic resistance was demonstrated for the 50% of the tested molecules

New trends in meat packaging

The term ‘packaging’ refers to the technological intervention aimed at the protection of food from a variety of factors, which provokes the product detriment. Packaging is considered as one of the most interesting technological aspects and a constantly evolving issue in food production. This paper aims at the evaluation of the properties of packaging currently used in the meat industry and analyses the advantages, the disadvantages and the microbiota involved. Packaging is a coordinated system, which prepares the products for transportation, distribution, storage, marketing and consumption. Even if several packaging alternatives are proposed, the common purpose is to guarantee high standards, yet maintaining the required characteristics as long as possible. Meat is a dynamic system with a limited shelf-life and the nutritional and sensory properties may change during storage due to microbial activity and physical or chemical changes. Microbial spoilage, for instance, determines an impact in meat, producing unattractive odours, flavours, discolouration, gas and slime.EFSAam2021Paraclinical Science

Iter e procedure per l'esportazione di carne made in Italy negli USA

Con l’avvento della globalizzazione, i consumatori americani hanno mostrato un particolare interesse per i prodotti italiani e quindi le aziende italiane hanno iniziato ad aprirsi a questo mercato, affrontando l'iter per l'adeguamento ai criteri previsti dalle procedure di esportazione dei prodotti alimentari negli USA. Negli Stati Uniti, i dipartimenti preposti al controllo e a legiferare in materia alimentare sono il USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dipartimento dell’Agricoltura degli Stati Uniti) e il HHS (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Dipartimento della Salute e dei Servizi Umani) e tutte le norme da essi emanate vengono riportate nel Codice dei regolamenti federali (Code Of Federal Regulations - CFR). Le aziende che intendono esportare i loro prodotti alimentari negli USA devono fare riferimento al 9 CFR, suddiviso in varie parti, che si riferiscono ai requisiti strutturali ed igienici (9 CFR 416), all'autocontrollo (9 CFR 417), all’organizzazione dei controlli e alle prescrizioni relative alla non idoneità (9 CFR 500), alla gestione del pericolo Listeria monocytogenes nei prodotti ready to eat (9 CFR 430), alla gestione del pericolo Salmonella spp. (9 CFR 318), ai metodi di produzione dei prodotti a base di carne suina (9 CFR 94) e infine alle certificazioni necessarie ai fini dell’esportazione (9 CFR 327.4). Per esempio, nel caso del prosciutto crudo, viene dettagliatamente descritto come deve avvenire la stagionatura. Dopo l’adeguamento alla normativa statunitense, le aziende devono presentare formale richiesta d'iscrizione nella lista export all’ASL del territorio competente che provvede al sopralluogo e all’invio della documentazione al Ministero della Salute, il quale, dopo un periodo di pre-iscrizione, invia degli ispettori per l’ultima verifica. In seguito all’iscrizione dell’azienda nella lista, avranno inizio i Controlli Ufficiali. In particolare, nei prodotti a base di carne, devono essere svolti piani per la gestione di Listeria monocytogenes e di Salmonella spp. Infine, il prodotto confezionato, prima di essere esportato, necessita di un certificato sanitario rilasciato dal Veterinario Ufficiale della ASL e deve essere correttamente etichettato, in riferimento alle parti 21 CFR 101, 9 CFR 317 e 9 CFR 319

The active city perspective: Body practices in the urban public space

The body-friendly urban landscape concept is deeply rooted in the parallel history of body and town-planning dating back at least to the 19th century when the hygienical problems drove toward massive rehabilitations in European cities. The last decades have witnessed a reaction, aimed at city sustainability, to people’s marginalization from the public space, result of a car-oriented planning. In this scenery, the body is gradually assuming a pivotal role as city liveability’s indicator. The matter of the body moving in the public space embraces several intertwined cultural dimensions questioning socio-educational, health, legislative, and infrastructural features. In this light, and systematized by the WHO, the active city (AC) approach is emerging as a prospective inter-sectorial strategy to deal with multifaceted urban issues through the facilitation of the body expression. Observed from the social sciences viewpoint, this tendency entails ambiguities: while the demand to enhance physical activity (PA) is encountering a growing attention, a social control of the body can be envisaged as potential risk. The arguing about opacities and the difficulties in the implementation of the policies to promote PA should be included in the AC planning process. The on-going study had been based on direct observations (n=45) of European cities (n=6) sites (n=25), and interviews (n=22). Recently, the study, both qualitative and quantitative, has been expanding to specific groups (children, elderly, and commuters) involving urban planning policies at different scales, also investigating the prospective role of ICT devices. Certain AC planning criteria are emerging: a revised classification of sport and PA infrastructures (IMPALA EU-funded project), their availability, proximity, and accessibility; an awareness of the concepts of tight and loose spaces (Franck & Stevens, 2006), space and place, adaptability and flexibility, porosity, ‘egoistic’ and ‘altruistic’ PA. These concepts highlight an enduring structure-agency relationship between the body and the city, while designing a body-geography (Bourdieu, 1992) of lively and sociable places endorsing a plurality of performances. Furthermore, a key role should be played by the involvement of citizens and by a wide sight on participation, which is the very central point connecting the involved disciplines, including bottom-up processes and informal appropriation of spaces. A scattered tendency to plan public spaces according to AC criteria is observable. The majority of planning starts from a sectorial approach; few of them show an awareness of the potential consequences on PA levels, rarely are based on an interdisciplinary and participatory model

Active Cities & Health: a children perspective

The emerging Active Cities approach enhances the opportunities to be physically active by promoting active lifestyles in the urban environment to fight against inactivity-related health issues like non-communicable-diseases. Despite this approach dates back to the Nineteen-seventies, the most fragile group of citizens from the independent mobility point of view (children, elderly and disabled people) are still encountering difficulties in moving autonomously around the urban realm, with a negative impact on their opportunities to learn, socialize and be physically active in the day-to-day routine. The decline in children’s autonomy is a recognized concern, with a clear north-south gradient throughout Europe seeing Italy ranking last, and a direct relation to inactivity rates, overweight and obesity among Italian children. Therefore, a quali-quantitative three years longitudinal research intervention had been conducted in the Italian town of Cassino, investigating children's active and independent mobility. Findings show alarming results concerning children’s autonomy (only 3% go to school independently) and active lifestyles (only 17% go to school in active ways). A conceptual model based on the classification of children's physical activity as either “independent” or “non-independent” has been developed, showing that a large part of physical activity in children should be considered as an epiphenomenon of their independent mobility and roaming opportunities in the public space. To enhance activity levels in children, the focus of decision makers should be directed to all their potential realms of experience, also taking into account the infrastructural and socio-educational determinants of active lifestyles

The Active City Perspective

The emergent Active Cities approach has been firstly promoted by the public health sector, and investigated through town planning, socio-educational, and physical activity perspectives. According to our interdisciplinary approach and other studies, a merging of interests is encompassed in the Active City perspective; new urban challenges are emerging and need to be tackled in integrated manners from multiple disciplines, the principal being urban planning and design. The world experiences great urbanization trends: population's progressive aging; globalization; migratory flows and other demographic, socio-economic and geopolitical transformations; modified behaviors and more sedentary lifestyles, mechanization and industrialization processes. Such trends are deeply changing not only the social context as well as people's habits and health conditions, but also the very structure of cities. The aforementioned framework represents an important health care, social and political dare, but also and especially a great urban challenge. Thus, the promotion of walkable and, more broadly, physical-activity-friendly urban environments and active lifestyles reaches several requirements: to fight the escalation of NCDs, prolonging people healthy fitness; to plan and build more sociable and livable districts; to promote walkability, active commuting and sustainable mobility; to allow children to play; to make physical activity and sport practicable within the urban public realm. The Active City model should be able to guide the practice of urban planning and design and urban regeneration towards more integrated and effective approaches, drawing within the legislation and the urbanism disciplines topics such as active and sustainable mobility; public health; urban safety and accessibility; sustainability and social inclusion. Also, certain Active City planning criteria are emerging: a revised classification of sport and physical activity infrastructures (IMPALA EU-funded project), their availability, proximity, and accessibility; an awareness of the concepts of tight and loose spaces, space and place, adaptability and flexibility, porosity, ‘egoistic’ and ‘altruistic’ physical activity; the role of citizens’ participation. The overall purpose of the various researches and design interventions that our interdisciplinary team has been developing is to better investigate the past and present connections between the fields of urbanism, public health, and PA in order to rely on a better defined framework for addressing the health epidemics and disparities of urban populations also from an Urbanism perspective, and trough a planning and design approach. In order to drive such a process, while approaching the matter with a proactive and more operative-oriented gaze, also new instruments and methodologies are being conceived and tested, trying to overcome the paradoxical lack of planning and design-oriented instruments as well as professional contributions within the Active City field: one above all, the Active City Chart

Ripensare l’urbanità dell’urbano. Dalla strada alle strade

Le attenzioni educative, i processi culturali, insieme con le decisioni urbanistiche connotano il rapporto tra bambino e spazi pubblici. La qualità urbana delle nostre città, di cui è indicatore la presenza dei soggetti fragili specie in termini di mobilità e uso degli spazi pubblici e collettivi, deriva da decisioni assunte molti decenni fa, coraggiose e visionarie nei casi più virtuosi, integrate nel tessuto storico della città e sostanziate da scelte più recenti. Proprio questi tempi di esposizione alla pandemia ci hanno consentito di realizzare, per sottrazione, l’indispensabilità degli spazi pubblici esperendo quanto il nostro corpo abbia necessità di muoversi; e di muoversi in sicurezza. Il contributo ripercorre brevemente la storia urbanistica recente di alcune città italiane, connettendola con i movimenti che, in Europa, hanno condotto a una riflessione sulla progressiva negazione ai bambini dello spazio pubblico. Si riflette altresì sulla generale disattenzione della pedagogia nei confronti della città e, in generale, degli spazi pubblici quasi accettando la logica di un’esperienza infantile frantumata in tempi e, soprattutto, spazi sovente istituzionali ed iper-definiti. Eppure, scopriamo proprio oggi quanto un’intenzionalità educativa degli spazi pubblici sia essenziale per riconfigurare i servizi educativi anche nei termini di consentire ai bambini il gioco e una mobilità sicura e indipendente. Vengono infine presentati esempi virtuosi, a partire dagli interventi di Aldo Van Eyck ad Amsterdam nel secondo dopoguerra, fino a disvelare quanto la recente istituzione delle “zone scolastiche” possa costituire un nucleo di sviluppo, in termini progettuali, di una nuova attenzione al tema

Active Cities and Health: a children perspective

The emerging Active Cities approach enhances the opportunities to be physically active by promoting active lifestyles in the urban environment to fight against inactivity-related health issues like non-communicable-diseases. Despite this approach dates back to the Nineteen-seventies, the most fragile group of citizens from the independent mobility point of view (children, elderly and disabled people) are still encountering difficulties in moving autonomously around the urban realm, with a negative impact on their opportunities to learn, socialize and be physically active in the day-to-day routine. The decline in children’s autonomy is a recognized concern, with a clear north-south gradient throughout Europe seeing Italy ranking last, and a direct relation to inactivity rates, overweight and obesity among Italian children. Therefore, a quali-quantitative three years longitudinal research-intervention had been conducted in the Italian town of Cassino, investigating children's active and independent mobility. Findings show alarming results concerning children’s autonomy (only 3% go to school independently) and active lifestyles (only 17% go to school in active ways). A conceptual model based on the classification of children's physical activity as either “independent” or “non-independent” has been developed, showing that a large part of physical activity in children should be considered as an epiphenomenon of their independent mobility and roaming opportunities in the public space. To enhance activity levels in children, the focus of decision makers should be directed to all their potential realms of experience, also taking into account the infrastructural and socio-educational determinants of active lifestyles

Active cities/active children: a planning and pedagogical perspective

This contribution, written by an urban designer and an educationist, aims at (re)focusing the attention of the interdisciplinary debate on the active role of children within the public urban realm or – as we could rephrase it – on the potential influences that the city, its structure, regulations and spaces has on children intended as a vulnerable population group. In order to do so, some reflections on the relationship between “the child and the city” are presented, also supported by an original walk-to-school research conducted in the Italian city of Cassino, investigating children's active and independent mobility, and by a conceptual model based on the classification of children's physical activity as either “independent” or “non-independent”. Finally, a discussion on the pivotal role of public spaces is developed, briefly presenting some virtuous project examples

Dalla città al territorio attivo: verso un modello italiano

Il tema della Città Attiva si sta ponendo in luce come soluzione ecologica interdisciplinare a varie problematiche urbane emerse negli ultimi decenni, prospettando la necessità di una stretta collaborazione tra i settori dell’urbanistica, dei trasporti, dello sport, dell’ambiente, della sanità pubblica, delle politiche economiche, educative e sociali. Possiamo definire una città “attiva” quando potenzia le opportunità che consentono a tutti i cittadini di mantenersi fisicamente attivi nella vita quotidiana, agendo sulle infrastrutture e sul contesto sociale: la rete della mobilità urbana, i parchi, le aree ricreative, sportive, gli spazi informali, le loro connessioni, rappresentano ambiti che possono favorire o contrastare l’uso attivo del corpo nello spazio pubblico e, di conseguenza, ambiti strategici per il contrasto al declino urbano. In Italia, l’informale rete delle Città Attive raccoglie comuni, associazioni, università, enti privati e sta sviluppando contesti di ricerca interdisciplinare e applicativi specialmente interrogandosi su come un tale modello integrato urbano possa divenire strumento operativo a diverse scale in grado, tra gli altri, di migliorare le politiche di convergenza territoriale. In questa prospettiva, il tema della Città Attiva può essere esteso al concetto di Territorio Attivo, promuovendo sempre più interventi integrati e policentrici, capaci, da un lato di riqualificare i singoli insediamenti urbani regionali, dall’altro di costruire una vera e propria rete di mobilità attiva e integrata affinché diventino luoghi di vita e di lavoro più sostenibili, attrattivi, inclusivi