Abstract
This article reviews various decontamination methods of herbal raw materials in Poland. These are the physical and chemical treatments of plant raw materials that remove mineral and microbiological impurities to ensure food safety. There is increasing use of herbal raw materials, and it is important to understand various methods that can be used for hygienization. Techniques used ensure the removal of mechanical impurities and elimination of microorganisms in a plant material. Depending on the method of choice, certain microorganisms are removed to a varying degree, and at the same time, there is a partial loss of the health-promoting properties of the plants subjected to the hygienization. Therefore, there is need to decide on optimal methods for hygienization of herbs that both reduce microbial contamination to the maximum extent and minimize the decrease in valuable ingredients contained in the herbs. Ozonization of plant raw materials is an effective method of removing microbiological contamination from most herbs. A good solution is also to use hybrid methods. In our literature review, ozone is very often mentioned as an effective disinfectant for herbs and spices. However, there is no information about the effect of ozone use on the substances contained in herbs and spices.
Highlights
The rapidly growing importance of healthcare, beauty, and vitality, especially in developed countries [1], leads to increase in demand for cosmetics, cosmeceuticals, parapharmaceuticals, diet supplements, and nutraceuticals
Cross-contamination of medicinal herbs and spices with excrements of animals or humans can be evidenced by the presence of the genus Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Enterococcus faecalis, Yersinia enterocolitica, and Escherichia coli [15]
According to the regulations in force, in Poland and other countries the herbal products must meet microbiological requirements as defined by the standards. They predict the complete absence of certain types of microorganisms in the samples of defined sizes or they specify the permissible degree of contamination in 1 g of a product
Summary
The rapidly growing importance of healthcare, beauty, and vitality, especially in developed countries [1], leads to increase in demand for cosmetics, cosmeceuticals, parapharmaceuticals, diet supplements, and nutraceuticals. Medicinal herbs for cosmeceutical have evolved to a separate high-growing market segment. The processing of herbs and other plants used in medicine, cosmetics and diet supplementation requires maintaining high standards of microbiological purity. The stage is focused on microbiological purity of production materialsâusually there are a lot of microorganisms on the plants that may develop. Sci. 2020, 10, 8268 during the drying process, storage, or transport Many of these microorganisms can cause serious disease even death [9,10]. A lot of them results in the modification of chemical composition of processed plants so that they loss their valuable components and biological properties. The appropriate method should result in a high level of microbiological purity on the one hand and minimizing the side effect of modifying the chemical composition on the other hand. We used publications from scientific databases such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, SIGĆ»âSystem Informacji o Gospodarce Ć»ywnoĆciowej, and Food Science Source
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
