Effect of radio-frequency on heating characteristics of beef homogenate blends

Radiofrequency pasteurization of inoculated ground beef homogenate

“…The electric current and heating for the RF were adjusted using previously reported experiments conducted in our laboratory (Kirmaci & Singh, 2012;Nagaraj et al, 2015). The RF equipment (Model S061B; Stray-Field Ltd, Reading, UK) consisted of an RF generator, two electrodes, and a conveyor belt.…”

“…RF heating procedure RF oven heating used in this study was adapted from a previously reported study (Nagaraj et al, 2015). The homogenate pouch was placed for heating in a high-temperature resistant polysulfone tray (H-Pan™, Cambro, Huntington Beach, CA, USA) (48.26 Â 27.94 Â 6.35 cm 3 ) at the center of the RF oven.…”

“…Radio-frequency (RF) is an innovative heating technology that is highly effective in reducing microbial contamination and improving food quality (Awuah, Ramaswamy, Economides and Mallikarjunan, 2005;Guo, Piyasena, Mittal, Si and Gong, 2006;Nagaraj, Singh, Hung and Mohan, 2015). For example, RF heating of raw food items has been studied for the purpose of insect control of disinfection to improve quality of foods.…”

“…Several studies (Guo et al, 2006;Luechapattanaporn et al, 2004Luechapattanaporn et al, , 2005Nagaraj et al, 2015;Zhao, Flugstad, Kolbe, Park and Wells, 2000) have evaluated the effectiveness of RF heating on pasteurizing sausage (Houben, Schoenmakers, Van Putten, Van Roon and Krol, 1991); cured hams (Bengtsson, Green and Valle, 1970;Orsat, Bai, & Raghavan, 1999); and skinless meatloaf (Zhao et al, 2000); sterilizing inoculated mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs with Clostridium sporogenes (PA 3679) (Luechapattanaporn et al, 2004(Luechapattanaporn et al, , 2005 and achieved sufficient microbial inactivation while producing foods with a higher quality than conventionally treated products.…”

“…Preliminary studies were conducted to select type of heating tray, packaging material, heating medium (water) temperature, and distance between electrodes. A customized polyetherimide grid was built and placed on top of the homogenate bags to hold them at proper depth in water during RF heating (Nagaraj et al, 2015). To simulate RF heating characteristics of ground beef of different lean/ fat blends, ground beef was homogenized with phosphate buffer (100 mM; pH 5.8e6.0).…”