ABSTRACT

Culinary herbs and spices are an important sector of the food industry worldwide, but are often characterized by high levels of microbial contaminations. Therefore, irradiation is often applied to control the microbial burden. In this study, two spice decontamination technologies were compared: the established gamma irradiation as well as a newly developed low energy electron beam (LEEB) treatment. The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of microbial surface inactivation for both treatments and their influence on quality attributes. Allspice berries, caraway seeds, oregano, and rosemary leaves were used as model matrices. Both treatments were shown to effectively reduce Enterococcus faecium counts below the detection limit (>3.3–5.5 log₁₀). No differences in color, water activity, chlorophyll, and carotenoid contents, as well as 31 terpenoic compounds were determined between LEEB and gamma treatments in comparison to the untreated reference, for storage times of up to 105 days. Untargeted fingerprinting (SPME-GC-HRMS) showed a clustering of LEEB-treated rosemary samples, but no significant differences for the other samples.

摘要

烹饪药草和香料是全球食品工业的一个重要部门，但通常具有高度微生物污染的特点。因此，通常采用辐照来控制微生物负荷。在这项研究中，对两种香料去污技术进行了比较：已建立的伽马辐射以及新开发的低能电子束 (LEEB) 处理。该研究的目的是评估微生物表面灭活对两种处理的功效及其对质量属性的影响。多香果浆果、香菜籽、牛至和迷迭香叶用作模型矩阵。两种处理都显示出有效地将粪肠球菌计数降低到检测限以下 (>3.3–5.5 log ₁₀）。与未处理的参照相比，LEEB 和伽马处理之间在颜色、水分活度、叶绿素和类胡萝卜素含量以及 31 种萜类化合物方面没有差异，储存时间长达 105 天。非靶向指纹图谱 (SPME-GC-HRMS) 显示了 LEEB 处理的迷迭香样品的聚类，但其他样品没有显着差异。