Nonthermal physical technologies to decontaminate and extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables: Trends aiming at quality and safety

Abstract

Minimally processed fruits and vegetables are one of the major growing sectors in food industry. This growing demand for healthy and convenient foods with fresh-like properties is accompanied by concerns surrounding efficacy of the available sanitizing methods to appropriately deal with food-borne diseases. In fact, chemical sanitizers do not provide an efficient microbial reduction, besides being perceived negatively by the consumers, dangerous for human health, and harmful to the environment, and the conventional thermal treatments may negatively affect physical, nutritional, or bioactive properties of these perishable foods. For these reasons, the industry is investigating alternative nonthermal physical technologies, namely innovative packaging systems, ionizing and ultraviolet radiation, pulsed light, high-power ultrasound, cold plasma, high hydrostatic pressure, and dense phase carbon dioxide, as well as possible combinations between them or with other preservation factors (hurdles). This review discusses the potential of these novel or emerging technologies for decontamination and shelf-life extension of fresh and minimally processed fruits and vegetables. Advantages, limitations, and challenges related to its use in this sector are also highlighted.

Cold plasma: a potential new method to manage postharvest diseases caused by fungal plant pathogens

“…Several authors (Schluter et al ., ; Thirumdas et al ., ; Pinela & Ferreira, ) consider postharvest CP treatment as a green/environment‐friendly technology as it requires low energy and water consumption. According to Herrmann et al .…”

Cold atmospheric plasma manipulation of proteins in food systems

“…This aspect has been less attended in the previous research works and requires further investigations. The changes made by plasma to the formulation of food recipes or conformation of food components could have unforeseen consequences on the final product quality (Pinela and Ferreira, 2015) and safety, as this would result in the temporary or permanent removal of some protective effects such as the lowering of water activity and reduction in antioxidant capacity. Accordingly, there is still a need for more comprehensive studies on the consequences of plasma protein manipulation in both in vitro and in vivo conditions to ensure the health of food supplies.…”

Effect of High Pressure Processing on the Microbial Inactivation in Fruit Preparations and Other Vegetable Based Beverages

“…With respect to microorganisms and virus types, many studies showed that the HPP treatment does not work the same way for all taxa [37,38]. Indeed, different species can have varying pressure resistance and the stage of growth of bacteria is also important in determining pressure resistance: for example, cells in stationary or dormant phase are more pressure resistant than those in the exponential phase.…”

“…HPP can cause damage to the virus envelope, preventing the virus particles binding to cells or even complete dissociation of virus particles, which may be either fully reversible or irreversible, depending on the pressure. Prions, associated with neurological disorders in animals and humans, are generally even more difficult to destroy than bacterial spores [38].…”