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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 #346858

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: Control of bacillus cereus spore germination and outgrowth in cooked rice during chilling by nonorganic and organic apple, orange, and potato peel powders

Author
item Juneja, Vijay
item Friedman, Mendel
item MOHR, TIM - Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS)
item SILVERMAN, MERYL - Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS)
item Mukhopadhyay, Sudarsan

Submitted to: Journal of Food Processing and Preservation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/3/2017
Publication Date: 12/1/2017
Citation: Juneja, V.K., Friedman, M., Mohr, T.B., Silverman, M., Mukhopadhyay, S. 2017. Control of bacillus cereus spore germination and outgrowth in cooked rice during chilling by nonorganic and organic apple, orange, and potato peel powders. Journal of Food Processing and Preservation. 42:e13558. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.13558.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.13558

Interpretive Summary: Bacillus cereus, a foodborne pathogen, causes diarrheal and emetic forms of foodborne illness. Thus, there was a need to determine the cooling time and temperature for cooked rice to remain pathogen-free and provide vital data for performing risk assessment on cooked rice. We determined that cooling times for rice with added apple and orange peel powders after cooking can be extended to 21 h to reduce the potential risk of B. cereus germination and outgrowth. These findings will be of immediate use to the retail food service operations and regulators to ensure the safety of the cooked rice.

Technical Abstract: The inhibition of Bacillus cereus spore germination and outgrowth in cooked rice by nine fruit and vegetable peel powders prepared from store-bought conventional (nonorganic) and organic apples, oranges, and potatoes was investigated. The powders were mixed into rice at 10% (wt/wt) along with heat activated four-strain B. cereus cocktail to obtain a final spore concentration of ca. 2.04 log spores per gram. Aliquots (5 g) of cooked rice were cooled from 54.5 to 7.2C in 12, 15, 18 or 21 h, resulting in 1.93, 2.82, 3.83, and 3.58 log CFU/g increases, respectively, in B. cereus levels. With the exception of purple potato peel powder, the net growth of B. cereus in cooked rice with added all other peel powders was significantly lower (p less than 0.05) than the control rice after 12 h cooling from 54.5 to 7.2C. Both organic and non-organic naval orange peel, non-organic red delicious apple peel as well as organic and non-organic golden delicious apple peel supplemented in cooked rice were most effective in restricting growth after extended cooling from 54.5 to 7.2C in 21 h. The results show that incorporation of 10% food-derived peels into rice may reduce the potential risk of B. cereus germination and outgrowth during abusive cooling regimes, thus reducing the risk to consumers.