Gyrotron Beam Food Decontamination
Gyrotron Beam Food Decontamination
Food borne illnesses are well known to be a major public health issue, and inactivation of pathogens from meat is a significant problem for processors. None of the current cleaning processes (washing, application of hot water, steam or various chemicals) provides the degree of inactivation of pathogens desired while maintaining a raw product acceptable for human consumption. These cleaning processes are also slow, expensive, and environmentally unfriendly.
A gyrotron technology shows great potential benefit in solving the problem of cleaning meat. The technology provides reduction in bacterial contamination by heating the surface of the meat to a very high temperature in a very short time without causing a change in the appearance of the meat. This technology is also potentially applicable to solid and semi-solid produce, and other food. Our experimental results were recently verified by a rigorous 3rd party trial. See MLA report on this page. The trial was conducted using a commercial type gyrotron and meat pieces, with both fat and lean surfaces, inoculated with Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecium, suspended in broth or in the presence of feces. In all cases, gyrotron processing resulted in a greater than a 5 log10 reduction in bacterial count (see pages 12-13 of the MLA report).
Click to download the MLA report.
