Leafy , gullible vegetables , index - jam with food , are a arise part of the modal American diet . Yet in 2009 , leafy cat valium also made the Center for Science in the Public Interest ’s “ Top 10 Most grievous Foods , ” due to a surprising number of food - put up unwellness linked to the ostensibly innocent salad staple .
A team of investigator with the Ohio State University ’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center is working to combat the problem with leafy greens .
concord to the Food and Drug Administration , 82 intellectual nourishment - borne illness outbreaks between 1996 and 2008 were linked to the wasting disease offresh garden truck . More than 34 percent of them were trace to leafy Green , account for 949 illnesses and five deaths . One eruption alone , the 2006 taint of prickly-seeded spinach withEscherichia coliO157 : H7 , make 204 illnesses , including 104 hospitalizations , 31 eccentric of hemolytic - uremic syndrome ( a serious complication ) and three deaths . On top of the human price , the economical impact of that outbreak alone was guess at anywhere from $ 37 million to $ 75 million .
“ Leafy Green — spinach , dough — are the most hard character of fresh produce to plow , ” enunciate Ahmed Yousef , food microbiologist and prof of intellectual nourishment scientific discipline and technology at OSU . “ The leaf are porous . That allows the plant to take a breath , but it also makes it easy for pathogen to enter into the leaf — not just stay on the airfoil . And , leaves are much more raw to treatment than other types of produce . We have been trying to figure out how to kill micro-organism without damaging the folio at the same time . There ’s not a large margin for error . ”
Freshly harvested leafy green are often emptiness - cooled , washed and sanitized with atomic number 17 solvent before promotion . “ But research shows liquid sanitizers are not always in force , and sometimes make the problem worse , ” says OSU intellectual nourishment engineer Gonul Kaletunc .
The trouble is two-fold , the scientist explain :
“ If you have a bacteria sitting 1 millimeter inside a leaf surface cavity and your sanitizer does n’t partake the bacteria , it ’s not going to have any effect , ” says Sudhir Sastry , OSU food - prophylactic engineer and drawing card of this endeavor .
That ’s why the squad , arm with a $ 1 million grant from the USDA , has turned its attention to studying the effectiveness of gaseous sanitizers , including ozone and Cl dioxide .
“ To get into the crevices of the leaf , it ’s got to be flatulency , not liquid , ” Yousef enunciate .
Although gaseous sanitizers have a much better prospect of reaching the pathogen , they also require specific conditions to work . According to Sastry , that cause a challenge .
“ At the processing degree , everything is geared to fastness , speed , speed , ” Sastry pronounce . “ But sanitizers , particularly the limpid sanitizers , are tiresome , slow , slow , which is not compatible with a high - stop number functioning . So we look at the whole process and thought , ‘ Why not go for the sanitizer when there is some time to let it sour ? ' ”
large processors , for representative , habituate vacuum cool for a half - hour or longer after harvest and before greens are transported for pack .
“ To use gas as a sanitizer , you need an airtight compartment , ” Kaletunc enounce . “ You have that with vacuum cleaner cooling , and vessels that are currently being used can be accommodate to use gun . ”
Another possibleness is to submit the super acid to a sanitizing gas during transportation .
“ Greens are in theodolite up to 96 hours , ” Sastry say . “ Why not subject them to the sanitizing gas then , when there ’s plenty of time for it to work ? We demand to be able to incorporate a gaseous sanitization procedure into the green goods chain ’s exist process — that will be fundamental . ”
One OSU study , published in 2009 in theJournal of Food Protectionand conducted by Sastry , Yousef and two of their postgraduate students , found that a compounding treatment using ozone gas during vacuity temperature reduction and transportation reducedE. colion spinach leaves by up to 99.99 percentage . In the current project , the investigator are further studying possible combinations of gaseous sanitizer — both ozone and chlorine dioxide — and partners at Iowa State University are examining the use of limpid organic acids meld with surfactant to determine if those would be as effective . Additional partners at New Mexico State University are preparing preparation material for agriculturalist and processors . A half - XII produce companies from across the U.S. have attend task meetings and expressed interest in the workplace , Sastry enounce .
It all come down to rubber .
“ If we hold the right technique in the correct place at the correct time , ” he says , “ we really can improve the safe of produce . ”
