Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the impact of gamma irradiation and plasma treatment on quality (appearance, odor and texture) and safety (total bacteria count, psychrophilic bacteria, spore forming bacteria, total molds and yeasts) of cold sliced chicken. Pulsed atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (PAPPJ) device is used for the treatment of fresh sliced chicken with different exposure time. Also, another sliced chicken samples were subjected to different gamma irradiation doses. The results illustrate that gamma irradiation and plasma treatment had no real effect on the chemical composition of sliced chicken and the effects of these treatments on the microbial load are reduced the counts of total bacteria, psychrophilic bacteria, total molds and yeasts count. Gamma irradiation and plasma treatment had no effects on the sensory characteristics for appearance, odor and texture of all sliced chicken samples. Finally, gamma irradiation and plasma treatment had no adverse effects on the sensory properties of sliced chicken samples, therefore, their use as safety technological treatments in food preservation and extending shelf-life. Key words: Gamma irradiation, plasma, chicken, microbial load.
Highlights
Poultry carcasses are commonly contaminated with enteric pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogenes (Jacobsreitsma et al, 1994; Murphy et al, 2004); the possibility of cross-contamination of poultry carcasses post slaughter is high
Plasma is created under energy deposition into gaseous mixture
In this work, we examined the efficacy of cold atmospheric plasma to inactivation of microbial load in sliced chicken compared to gamma radiation
Summary
Poultry carcasses are commonly contaminated with enteric pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogenes (Jacobsreitsma et al, 1994; Murphy et al, 2004); the possibility of cross-contamination of poultry carcasses post slaughter is high. Various decontamination technologies have been proposed including the use of various chemical agents such as alkali (Rodriguez et al, 1996), physical methods such as steam treatment (James et al, 2007) and biological control with bacteriophages (Carvalho et al, 2010), but only treatment with water supplemented with chlorine or a chlorineting agent is used commercially. The effects of such decontaminating treatments are limited (Oyarzabal, 2005; Russell and Axtell, 2005). Plasma consists of gaseous mixture of charged particles (free electrons and ions) and neutral activated species including gas molecules, free radicals, metastables and ultraviolet photons. In the gas mixture containing oxygen and water vapor, most of the primary radicals are O and OH
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