Food Safety
E. coli on Lettuce Leaves
With recent foodborne illness outbreaks related to fresh produce, it is important to have tools which would allow for the evaluation of possible microbial intervention processes on these refrigerated products. UGA food scientists find that using non-pathogenic bacterial surrogates in place of foodborne pathogens to evaluate the effectiveness of food processing procedures offers safety advantages, but surrogates must exhibit characteristics similar to the pathogen. Using the surrogate reduces the concerns related to the intentional introduction of pathogens in the food processing environment. The scientists evaluated five nonpathogenic E. coli strains for behavior similar to that of E. coli O157:H7. Populations of E. coli ATCC 25922 and E. coli O157:H7 were reduced by similar amounts (by about 99 percent) after washing with chlorinated water regardless of starvation conditions. E. coli ATCC 25922 was found to be a useful surrogate for E. coli O157:H7 for studies involving attachment and recoverability of chilled produce. (2006)
Source
| Name | Department | |
| Mark Harrison | mahfst@uga.edu | Food Science and Technology |