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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Microbial and Chemical Food Safety » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #340623
Research Project: Data Acquisition, Development of Predictive Models for Food Safety and their Associated Use in International Pathogen Modeling and Microbial Databases

Location: Microbial and Chemical Food Safety

Title: Growth of Clostridium perfringens in sous vide cooked ground beef with added grape seed extract

Author
item COSANSU, SERAP - Sakarya University
item Juneja, Vijay

Submitted to: Meat Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/21/2018
Publication Date: 5/22/2018
Citation: Cosansu, S., Juneja, V.K. 2018. Growth of Clostridium perfringens in sous vide cooked ground beef with added grape seed extract. Meat Science. 143:252-256.

Interpretive Summary: Concerns have been expressed about the public-health risks associated with sous-vide processed foods because the low temperature long time cooking may not ensure destruction of deadly pathogens. Since Clostridium perfringens was found to be one of the most common pathogens causing food poisoning in the United States, there was a need to determine the fate of the pathogen in sous vide processed foods. We determined that ground beef supplemented with grape seed extract can provide an adequate degree of protection in temperature abused products. These findings will be of immediate use to the retail food service establishments and regulatory agencies to ensure the microbiological safety of the sous-vide processed foods.

Technical Abstract: The growth of Clostridium perfringens from spore inocula was studied in sous vide cooked ground beef with added 0 to 3% grape seed extract (GSE). Vacuum packaged beef samples were cooked in a water bath programmed to linearly increase temperature from 23C to 75C in a period of one hour. Then, samples were cooled and subsequently stored at different temperatures (4, 15, 20 and 25C). Clostridium perfringens growth was monitored at periodic time intervals and the plating medium used was Tryptose-Sulphite-Cycloserine Agar. C. perfringens did not grow at 4C with or without GSE present. Lag time (LT) was 95 hours in control samples at 15C, whereas 1-3% GSE addition significantly (P less than 0.05) extended LT to 242 h or longer. Generation time (GT) in 3% GSE added beef was 2 h longer at 15C than that of control (P less than 0.05). At 20C, GT was 1.45 h in samples without GSE; however, 1-3% GSE addition extended GT by 2-3 folds (P less than 0.05). Lag time at 20C was 23.41 h in control samples, while LT was 39.75-58.67 h in samples containing GSE. Interestingly, GSE did not affect LT at 25C; however, significantly (P less than 0.05) longer GT was observed in 3% GSE added samples than the other sample groups. Additionally, GSE from 1 to 3% in beef extended the period needed to reach 6 log cfu/g at 15 or 20C, while 3% GSE was required at 25C. The findings suggest that GSE exhibits concentration and temperature dependent inhibitory effect on growth of C. perfringens in sous vide cooked ground beef. Grape seed extract can be used to extend the shelf-life and ensure the microbiological safety of sous vide cooked meat products.