When British bone meal manufacturers-during the energy crisis in the 1980s-lowered the temperature in the production of meat and bone meal used as supplementary feed for cows and other animals, no one had predicted that decades later this change would result in the loss of hundreds of British lives.
Nevertheless, this was what happened because the lower temperature was not able to deactivate a pathogen in the feed that could cause mad cow disease-first in cows that ate the contaminated feed, and then in humans who ate meat from infected cows.
DTU Professor Tine Hald sees this case as a horrifying example of the danger of food safety not being adequately thought through or analyzed before production processes are tweaked-whether in the name of profit or sustainability.
"Each time we change processes or do something new, we need to document the benefits and risks. It's not an easy exercise, but it's necessary if we are to make good decisions," she says.
