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Thirty-eight fruit salad samples including cantaloupe, citrus fruits, honeydew, pineapple, cut strawberries and mixed fruit salads, and 65 pasteurized fruit juice samples (apple, carrot, grapefruit, grape and orange juices, apple cider, and soy milk) were purchased from local supermarkets in the Washington, DC area and tested for fungal contamination. The majority of fruit salad samples (97%) were contaminated with yeasts at levels ranging from o2.0 to 9.72 log 10 of colony forming units per gram (cfu/g). Frequently encountered yeasts were Pichia spp., Candida pulcherrima, C. lambica, C. sake, Rhodotorula spp., and Debaryomyces polymorphus. Low numbers of Penicillium spp. were found in pineapple salads, whereas Cladosporium spp. were present in mixed fruit and cut strawberry salads. Twenty-two per cent of the fruit juice samples tested showed fungal contamination. Yeasts were the predominant contaminants ranging from o1.0 to 6.83 log 10 cfu/ml. Yeasts commonly found in fruit juices were C. lambica, C. sake, and Rhodotorula rubra. Geotrichum spp. and low numbers of Penicillium and Fusarium spp. (1.70 and 1.60 log 10 cfu/ml, respectively) were present in grapefruit juice. r

After harvest, vegetables are often spoiled by a wide variety of microorganisms including many bacterial and fungal species. The most common bacterial agents are Erwinia carotovora, Pseudomonas spp., Corynebacterium, Xanthomonas campestris, and lactic acid bacteria with E. carotovora being the most common, attacking virtually every vegetable type. Fungi commonly causing spoilage of fresh vegetables are Botrytis cinerea, various species of the genera Alternaria, Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Colletotrichum, Phomopsis, Fusarium, Penicillium, Phoma, Phytophthora, Pythium and Rhizopus spp., Botrytis cinerea, Ceratocystis fimbriata, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and some mildews. A few of these organisms show a substrate preference whereas others such as Botrytis cinerea, Colletotrichum, Alternaria, Cladosporium, Phytophthora, and Rhizopus spp., affect a wide variety of vegetables causing devastating losses. Many of these agents enter the plant tissue through mechanical or chilling injuries, or after the skin barrier has been broken down by other organisms. Besides causing huge economic losses, some fungal species could produce toxic metabolites in the affected sites, constituting a potential health hazard for humans. Additionally, vegetables have often served as vehicles for pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and parasites and were implicated in many food borne illness outbreaks. In order to slow down vegetable spoilage and minimize the associated adverse health effects, great caution should be taken to follow strict hygiene, good agricultural practices (GAPs) and good manufacturing practices (GMPs) during cultivation, harvest, storage, transport, and marketing.

Spoilage of pasteurized and canned fruit and fruit products caused by heat-resistant molds have been reported repeatedly in recent years. Species most commonly implicated in fruit and fruit product disintegration are Byssochlamys fulva, Byssochlamys nivea, Neosartorya fischeri, Talaromyces flavus, and Eupenicillium brefeldianum. These organisms are saprophytic rather than parasitic and usually contaminate fruits on or near the ground. They can survive heat treatments used for fruit processing and can grow and spoil the products during storage at room temperature, which results in great economic losses. Mold heat resistance is attributed to the formation of sexual spores, ascospores. Ascospores have a wide range of heat resistance, depending on species, strain, age of organism, heating medium, pH, presence of sugars, fats, and acids in heating medium, growth conditions, etc. The mechanism(s) of thermoresistance are not clear; probably some very stable compound(s) critical to germination and outgrowth are present in the heat-resistant ascospores. Besides spoilage, the heat-resistant molds produce a number of toxic secondary metabolites, such as byssotoxin A; byssochlamic acid; the carcinogen, patulin, the tremorgenic substances, fumitremorgin A and C, and verruculogen; fischerin, which caused fatal peritonitis in mice; and eupenifeldin, a compound possessing cytotoxicity as well as in vivo antitumor activity. Growth of heat-resistant fungi can be controlled by lowering the water activity, adding sulfur dioxide, sorbate, or benzoate; washing of fruits in hypochlorite solution before heat treatment reduces the number of ascospores and makes the heat destruction more successful. More research is needed to elucidate the mechanism(s) of thermoresistance and develop new methods for the complete inactivation of resistant ascospores.

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