Date of Award
5-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Legacy Department
Food, Nutrition, and Culinary Science
Committee Member
Dr. Julie Northcutt
Committee Member
Dr. Paul Dawson
Committee Member
Dr. Doug Smith
Abstract
Three experiments were performed to enumerate the natural microflora on unwashed peaches, known as 'field' peaches, and to determine the efficacy of using acidified electrolyzed water as a topical antimicrobial to remove or reduce the number of the natural microflora or inoculated Listeria innocua from to peach surfaces. During the first experiment, field peaches were divided into four treatment groups: no wash (NW), tap water wash (TW), acidified electrolyzed water wash (AEW), and chlorinated water wash (CL). Peaches were dipped into each of the treatment solutions at ambient temperature and immediately removed (approximately 5 seconds). Peaches were then rinsed in 100 mL of 0.1% peptone and rinsates were plated on aerobic plate count agar for enumeration. For the second experiment, exposure time to the treatment solutions and the temperature of the same treatment solutions were studied. Field peaches were again divided into NW, TW, AEW, and CL but treatments were applied using two exposure times of 5 seconds and 40 minutes at a temperature of 2°C (samples were given either a '0' or '40' in their labels to denote exposure time in minutes where 5 second exposures = 0 minutes e.g. TW-0, TW-40, AEW-0, etc.). Rinsing and plating was conducted as mentioned above. Experiment three investigated the efficacy of NW, TW, AEW, and Cl, in reducing numbers of Listeria innocua on peaches that were previously inoculated and held at 4°C for 24 hours. Inoculated peaches were dipped in treatment solutions for 5 second and 40 minute times at 2°C. Results showed that exposure time had a significant effect on bacterial reduction for both AEW and Cl treatments.
Recommended Citation
Hopkins, Dylan Zachary, "Use of Electrolyzed Water as a Topical Antimicrobial and Minimal Processing Technique for Fresh, Whole Peaches" (2015). All Theses. 2122.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2122