Abstract

This study carried out a systematic quantitative analysis of published literature on the efficacy of essential oils (EOs) as sanitizers in fresh leafy vegetables (FLVs). Efficacy of EO was measured by determining if their application could cause a reduction of microbial population in FLV, as well as by identifying experimental factors that might affect the achieved reduction levels. Data on efficacy of EO to reduce the microbial population and experimental conditions were collected from selected studies and compiled for a distribution and relational analysis. Reduction of an artificial inoculum and/or natural microbiota of FLV caused by 14 different EO were measured in 404 (73.8%) and 143 (26.2%) experiments, respectively. Results of quantitative analysis showed that EO are consistently effective to reduce microbial population in FLV either when the target microorganisms are forming an artificial inoculum or the natural microbiota, being overall similarly effective to or more effective than substances used ordinarily as sanitizers. EO were more effective to reduce the population of microorganisms forming an artificial inoculum than the natural microbiota. EO concentration and inoculum size had no significant effect on achieved reductions. Duration of sanitization treatment with EO had significant effect on achieved reductions and highest reductions were found when the sanitization time was >3 min. Although with the inherent variability in experimental designs found in available literature, the results of this quantitative analysis provide strong evidence that EO are promising candidates for use in strategies to sanitize FLV.

摘要

本研究对已发表的有关精油 (EO) 作为新鲜叶菜 (FLV) 消毒剂功效的文献进行了系统的定量分析。EO 的功效是通过确定它们的应用是否会导致 FLV 中微生物种群的减少，以及通过确定可能影响实现的减少水平的实验因素来衡量的。从选定的研究中收集了关于 EO 减少微生物种群和实验条件的功效的数据，并编制了分布和相关性分析。分别在 404 (73.8%) 和 143 (26.2%) 个实验中测量了由 14 种不同 EO 引起的人工接种物和/或 FLV 天然微生物群的减少。定量分析结果表明，当目标微生物形成人工接种物或天然微生物群时，EO 始终有效减少 FLV 中的微生物种群，总体上与通常用作消毒剂的物质相似或更有效。与天然微生物群相比，EO 在减少形成人工接种物的微生物数量方面更有效。EO 浓度和接种量对实现的减少没有显着影响。使用 EO 消毒处理的持续时间对实现的减少有显着影响，当消毒时间 >3 分钟时发现减少最多。尽管现有文献中发现的实验设计存在固有的可变性，