Bio-sanitation treatment using essential oils against E. coli O157:H7 on fresh lettuce. Issue 3 (3rd July 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mouatcho, Joel Claude; Tzortzakis, Nikolaos; Soundy, Puffy; Sivakumar, Dharini
• Is Part Of: New Zealand journal of crop and horticultural science. Volume 45:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 165
• Page End: 174
• Publication Date: 2017-07-03
• Subjects: Antioxidant scavenging activity -- essential oil -- food borne pathogen -- leafy vegetable -- total phenols; Crops -- New Zealand -- Periodicals; Horticulture -- New Zealand -- Periodicals; Crops -- Periodicals; Horticulture -- Periodicals; Crops; Horticulture; New Zealand; Periodicals; 633.09905
• DOI: 10.1080/01140671.2016.1269813
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1175-8783

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The study was undertaken to develop an effective bio-sanitation treatment using essential oils for the highly perishable leafy vegetable lettuce. The combination of thyme oil and tea tree oil mixed together had a significantly higher total phenolic content as well as higher antioxidant scavenging activity than other single oils or oil mixtures. Lettuce inoculated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 showed significantly reduced population counts in the presence of the sanitation treatment of a combination of thyme + tea tree oil applied by dipping at 0.75% + 0.75% or 1.5% + 1.5% concentrations compared to commercial sodium hypochlorite (200 mg/L NaOCl) washing after 5 days shelf life at 10°C. These results indicate that thyme + tea tree oil dipping treatment could be used to control E. coli O157:H7 contamination in lettuce as an alternative to NaOCl.