Tina Beck Hansen

Comparison of methods for assessing reverse osmosis membrane treatment of shrimp process water.

Interest in reuse of process water from the food industry has reinforced the importance of controlling and monitoring the effectiveness and reliability of treatment systems regarding removal of organic matter and microorganisms. The ability of adenosine triphosphate bioluminescence, conductivity, turbidometry, absorbance, and multichannel fluorescence spectroscopy for indirectly monitoring the integrity of a reverse osmosis membrane when treating process water recovered from peeling in a shrimp processing line was evaluated. This study demonstrated that reverse osmosis was capable of removing bacteria (ca. 7 log CFU ml(-1)) to the levels required by the regulatory authorities for water recycling within the same food unit operation. Adenosine triphosphate and turbidometry showed a higher sensitivity for detecting compromising conditions at the treatment system (0.1% concentration of feed in permeate) and a better correlation with the aerobic count at lower levels than the other methods investigated. The sensitivity for assessing membrane integrity of conductivity and multichannel fluorescence was 1% of feed in permeate. Impact of feed variations was best leveled out in the permeates for turbidity measurements. Multichannel fluorescence spectroscopy may require laborious calibration procedures and expertise regarding data analysis and interpretation of results, which are not always available in food industries. Absorbance did not respond to changes in membrane integrity and was not well correlated to the aerobic count because of the poor sensitivity of this method for these purposes.

Dietary proteins extend the survival of Salmonella Dublin in a gastric acid environment.

The pH of the human stomach is dynamic and changes over time, depending on the composition of the food ingested and a number of host-related factors such as age. To evaluate the number of bacteria surviving the gastric acid barrier, we have developed a simple gastric acid model, in which we mimicked the dynamic pH changes in the human stomach. In the present study, model gastric fluid was set up to imitate pH dynamics in the stomachs of young and elderly people after ingestion of a standard meal. To model a serious foodborne pathogen, we followed the survival of Salmonella enterica serotype Dublin, and found that the addition of proteins such as pepsin, ovalbumin, and blended turkey meat to the simple gastric acid model significantly delayed pathogen inactivation compared with the control, for which no proteins were added. In contrast, no delay in inactivation was observed in the presence of bovine serum albumin, indicating that protection could be protein specific. The simple gastric acid model was validated against a more laborious and complex fermenter model, and similar survival of Salmonella Dublin was observed in both models. Our gastric acid model allowed us to evaluate the influence of food components on survival of pathogens under gastric conditions, and the model could contribute to a broader understanding of the impact of specific food components on the inactivation of pathogens during gastric passage.