Food Poisoning Bulletin
One of every six people who drinks raw milk gets food poisoning, according to a new study from officials at the Minnesota Department of Health. That percentage is much higher than the number of cases reported in relation to outbreaks associated with raw milk and, researchers say, it’s increasing even as some states push to relax raw milk regulations.
Science Direct
Edible antimicrobial coating solutions incorporating chitosan, lauric arginate ester (LAE) and nisin were developed to reduce foodborne pathogen contamination on ready-to-eat (RTE) meats. RTE deli meat samples were directly coated with the solutions, or treated with solution-coated polylactic acid (PLA) films. The antimicrobial efficacy of the coatings and films against Listeria innocua inoculated onto the surface of RTE meat samples was investigated. Antimicrobial coatings with 1.94 mg/cm2 of chitosan and 0.388 mg/cm2 of LAE reduced L. innocua by ca. 4.5 log CFU/cm2. Nisin (486 IU/cm2) showed less effectiveness than LAE (0.388 mg/cm2) and addition of nisin to the antimicrobial coatings or films containing LAE (0.388 mg/cm2) did not enhance the total antimicrobial effectiveness. Combining antimicrobial coatings or films with flash pasteurization (FP), which uses short burst of steam under pressure, further reduced L. innocua, achieving over a 5 log reduction. There was no significant difference in the effectiveness of antimicrobial films versus the coatings (p > 0.05). These data show the potential use of antimicrobial packaging alone, or in combination with FP, in preventing foodborne illness due to post-processing contamination of RTE meat products.
Science Direct
Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella spp. often contaminate fresh beef. In Japan, an E coli outbreak caused by raw beef made 181 people ill and 5 individuals dead in 2011. Responding to this outbreak, an effective sterilization method for fresh beef is expected to be developed. In this study, ε-polylysine combined with CO2-packaging method was examined for controlling these pathogens in fresh beef. At an incubation temperature of 4 °C, approximately 4.3 log and 2.4 log reduction in bacterial numbers were observed after 7-day incubation for E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, respectively, in ε-polylysine-added beef. When effectiveness of CO2-packaging combined with ε-polylysine was investigated, CO2 did not have additional inhibiting effect on bacterial growth compared to only-ε-polylysine-treated samples when incubated at 4 °C. However, effectiveness of CO2 was observed when incubated at 10 °C where approximately 2.9 log and 4.4 log reduction in E. coli cell numbers were observed in only-ε-polylysine-treated samples and polylysine- and CO2-treated group, respectively, and approximately 1.7 log and 3.5 log reduction in Salmonella cell numbers were observed in only-ε-polylysine-treated samples and polylysine and CO2-treated group, respectively. This study confirmed that ε-polylysine or ε-polylysine combined with CO2 packaging are effective in preventing foodborne diseases caused by raw beef.
Food Poisoning Bulletin
The army of microbes that resides in the human gut may provide a powerful defense against Listeria infection, according to a study published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The study, by a team of French researchers, shows that mice with germ-free intestines are more susceptible to Listeria infection than mice with the conventional intestinal microbes.
