Effect of Post Inoculation Drying Procedures on the Reduction of Salmonella on Almonds by Thermal Treatments

Publication date: Available online 4 December 2019Source: Food Research InternationalAuthor(s): ZAHRA H. MOHAMMAD, ELSA A. MURANO, ROSANA G. MOREIRA, ALEJANDRO CASTILLOAbstractSince two outbreaks of salmonellosis were linked to the consumption of almonds in 2001 and 2004, the study of pathogen inactivation kinetics in almonds has been encouraged, often by conducting inoculated challenge studies. The inoculation method could affect the results of such challenge studies, because of the possible increase of moisture on the almonds resulting from a wet inoculation procedure, which may result in a potential overestimation of the effectiveness of treatments used to pasteurize almonds in industrial settings. Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis phage type 30 (PT30) isolated from an almond-linked outbreak was inoculated on nonpareil almonds and dried by accelerated (drying the inoculated almonds at 37 °C for 12 h) and conventional (drying inoculated almonds overnight at room temperature) drying methods, before treating the almonds with hot water (blanching) at 88 °C or hot oil (oil roasting) at 127 °C. The Weibull model explained the death of this pathogen on almonds better than log-linear model for oil roasting, whereas both log-linear and Weibull models were similarly effective for blanching. For blanching, the D values for Salmonella Enteritidis PT30 were 12.7 and 10.7 s with accelerated and conventional drying, respectively. For oil roasting, the b-values were 4.59 and 4.1...
Source: Food Research International - Category: Food Science Source Type: research