Abstract
A Northern Great Plains regional survey of microbiological loads in flaxseed was completed for years 2008 and 2009. Effects of cleaning flaxseed on microbial loads including aerobic plate counts (APCs), mold counts (MCs) yeast counts (YCs), coliform counts (CCs), Escherichia coli counts, and Enterobacteriaceae counts (ECs) were determined. Chemical analyses including oil and linolenic acid -ALA indicated that all flaxseed had near normal oil content. This was the first reported survey for flaxseed. The pre-cleaned flaxseed had an average of 5.7 ± 0.1, 4.1 ± 0.2, 4.5 ± 0.2, 3.6 ± 0.1, and 3.0 ± 0.1 log colony forming units (CFU) g-1 of APC, CC, EC, YC and MC respectively. All counts were higher than those for cleaned seed. No E. coli was detected. The North Dakota-West (ND-W) region flaxseed had higher MC when compared to Canada, ND-North East (ND-NE) and ND-South East (ND-SE) region flaxseed. For APC, the counts were higher in flaxseed from Canada when compared to North Dakota. Cleaning the flaxseed should be considered an important step in reducing the microbial counts and also for maintaining high quality flaxseed.
Highlights
Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum Linnaeus) is a rich source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) comprising up to 55% of the total flaxseed fatty acid content (Chen et al, 1994)
For aerobic plate counts (APCs), the counts were higher in flaxseed from Canada when compared to North Dakota
The temporal effect was evaluated on the microbial counts including APC, coliform counts (CCs), Enterobacteriaceae counts (ECs), mold counts (MCs) and yeast counts (YCs) (Table 1)
Summary
Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum Linnaeus) is a rich source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) comprising up to 55% of the total flaxseed fatty acid content (Chen et al, 1994). Flaxseed’s usage as a food ingredient has increased due to the positive results from health studies involving ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid (Morris & Vaisey-Genser, 2003). Apart from high ALA content, soluble fibre and proteins (22g g-1 of seed) are found in flaxseed (Rubilar et al, 2010). Flaxseed is a good source for lignans that inhibits some types of diabetes as reported by Mueller et al (2010). In contrast to the health benefits of flaxseed, quality and safety traits of flaxseed for food-use have not been well defined. There is a need to understand what normal microbial loads are for raw flaxseed
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