Food safety inspectors furloughed during the federal government shutdown will be returning to work beginning Tuesday — but still without pay — so that the Food and Drug Administration can begin to resume inspections of some high-risk foods at manufacturing and other processing plants, the agency’s commissioner said on Monday.

Food inspections — about 160 of which are conducted a week — have been halted since the federal government shut down and about 40 percent of the F.D.A.’s work force was furloughed.

But Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, said that he was asking employees to return from furlough to conduct some of the inspections and other agency functions involving surveillance of certain drugs, devices and potential outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.

About one-third of all food safety inspections are for high-risk foods, he said. It was unclear when more routine inspections would resume.