Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Direct application of electrical or wave energy to food... – Treatment with ultraviolet or visible light
Patent
1995-02-23
1997-01-28
Corbin, Arthur L.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Direct application of electrical or wave energy to food...
Treatment with ultraviolet or visible light
99451, 25045311, 25045511, 422 24, 4221863, A23B 401, A23B 4015, A23L 3005, A23L 328
Patent
active
055975976
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for reducing the microbial load, e.g. on foodstuffs, especially fresh and processed meats. It also relates to apparatus for near-aseptic packaging of foodstuffs, and the in situ sterilisation of food processing equipment.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The main determinant of the shelf life of many foodstuffs stored at ambient or chill room temperatures is microbial spoilage. The rate at which food deteriorates through the action of microbes is governed by a great variety of factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Generally, however, the single greatest factor that determines the rate of microbial growth (and hence the shelf life of the foodstuff) is the total number of microbes present on the foodstuff when it goes into store. In order to maximise shelf life, it is important to ensure that the foodstuff is exposed to as low numbers as possible of microbes.
Good practice in the food industry therefore demands scrupulous attention to cleanliness of raw materials, handling equipment and work surfaces, packaging, and, perhaps most importantly, personnel. Hygiene is also important from a public health point of view: many foodstuffs provide excellent substrates for the proliferation of pathogenic micro-organisms, which can lead to food poisoning as a direct result of transmission of the microbes from the foodstuff to the human consumer, and/or through the action of toxins produced by the microbes on the foodstuff as a by-product of their growth.
Meat is a prime example of a foodstuff in which microbial growth is of tremendous importance, because it is an excellent substrate for and transmitter of food poisoning organisms. Although the animal muscle that is the forerunner of a cut of meat is itself essentially sterile in a healthy animal, post-slaughter microbial contamination is inevitable. Typically, the process of breaking down a carcass of a meat animal to portions suitable for consumption or further processing involves many separate operations, many of which are still carried out manually. This is true for whole-meat cuts, such as steaks, chops, roasting joints, etc, but is enhanced if the meat is to be further processed, where frequently comminution will occur which by its very nature increases the surface area of the meat that can be in contact with microbe-harbouring machinery and work surfaces. Several economically important groups of meat products include during the course of their manufacture microbicidal or microbistatic factors: among the most noticeable being cooking, mixing with curing salts, and reduction of available water (for example through drying); despite this, such foodstuffs are all too frequently implicated in food poisoning outbreaks, when recontamination of the foodstuff after processing is often blamed. Cooking of any meat cut or product will reduce microbial numbers, the effect being largely determined by the combination of the temperature reached during the cooking process, and the overall time/temperature history, but the self-evident changes that heat treatment of this sort bring about in the meat itself limit the potential for using heat as a method of reducing microbial numbers. Nevertheless, it has received wide spread application, in particular for the development of food products with a very long shelf life. Usually such products have a very high fluid content, facilitating dosage of the combined foodstuff in aseptic packages.
It has long been known that irradiating foodstuffs with ultraviolet rays, especially with wavelength of 235-280 nm, can be used for reducing the microbial load on foodstuffs. This effect has achieved some commercial success in the large scale storage of certain foodstuffs, especially cheeses and other dairy-based products, where comparatively large quantities of the foodstuff are stored chilled under constant ultraviolet irradiation. This can be particularly beneficial for foodstuffs where mould and other fungi are the primary causes of spoilage. In these circumstances, the conditio
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