Estimation of Radiation Resistance Values of Microorganisms in Food Products

Abstract

Several statistical methods, including the conventional technique of Schmidt and Nank, were evaluated for estimating radiation resistance values of various strains of Clostridium botulinum by the use of partial spoilage data from an inoculated ham pack study. Procedures based on quantal response were preferred. The tedious but rigorous probit maximum likelihood determination was used as a standard of comparison. Weibull's graphical treatment was the method of choice because it is simple to utilize, it is mathematically sound, and its ld(50) values agreed closely with the reference standard. In addition, it offers a means for analyzing the type of microbial death kinetics that occur in the pack (exponential, normal, log normal, or mixed distributions), and it predicts the probability of microbial death with any radiation dose used, as well as the dose needed to destroy any given number of organisms, without the need to assume the death pattern of the partial spoilage data. The Weibull analysis indicated a normal type kinetics of death for C. botulinum spores in irradiated cured ham rather than an exponential order of death, as assumed by the Schmidt-Nank formula. The Weibull 12D equivalent of a radiation process, or the minimal radiation dose (MRD), for cured ham was consistently higher than both the experimental sterilizing dose (ESD) and the Schmidt-Nank average MRD. The latter calculation was lower than the ESD in three of the five instances examined, which seems unrealistic. The Spearman-Kärber estimate was favored as the arithmetic technique on the bases of ease of computation, close agreement with the reference method, and providing confidence limits for the ld(50) values.