THE DEVELOPMENT OF MICROBIOLOGICAL STANDARDS FOR FOODS1

In recent years, there have been many reports on microbiological standards for foods and their significance (1, 3, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). The topic has prompted a certain degree of controversy and arguments for and against such standards. All authors have indicated that microbiological standards should be applied with great caution. Microbiological standards have been proposed to measure the following attributes of a food: (a) the sanitary conditions under which the food was processed, (b) the keeping quality, and (c) the presence or absence of pathogens or other organisms that may indicate the presence of pathogens.