Shelf life of fresh-cut spinach as affected by chemical treatment and type of packaging film

Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering

A.m. Piagentini¹  D.r. Güemes¹ 

[1] ,Universidad Nacional del Litoral Facultad de Ingeniería Química Instituto de Tecnología de AlimentosSanta Fe,Argentina

关键词: shelf life;    fresh-cut vegetables;    packaging;    spinach;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S0104-66322002000400005

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Fresh-cut vegetables are an important and rapidly developing class of convenience foods. Their storage life may be greatly reduced due to their high rates of respiration and transpiration and the possibility of enzymatic and microbiological deterioration. Consequently, the objective of this work was to determine the shelf life and the failure attribute that conditioned the shelf life of fresh-cut spinach treated with chemical solutions and packaged in bags with different permeabilities. The shelf life of fresh-cut vegetables was defined as the time of refrigerated storage at which any one of the sensory attributes scored below 7 or when the microbiological counts exceeded 5.10(7) CFU/g. Fresh-cut spinach was treated with citric acid and ascorbic acid solutions and packaged in mono-oriented polypropylene (OPP) bags or low-density polyethylene (LDPE) bags. Sensory attributes and total microbial counts were evaluated throughout refrigerated storage. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to study the simultaneous effect of chemical treatment and refrigerated storage time on sensory and microbiological quality of fresh-cut spinach. A quadratic polynomial regression model was assumed for predicting off-odor, general appearance, wilting, browning, color, and mesophilic aerobic population. Type of packaging film only influenced development of off-odor (p£0.001) and had no effect on visual sensory attributes or microbiological counts (p>0.05). Development of off-odor was the attribute that limited shelf life of fresh-cut spinach packaged in OPP bags. On the other hand, shelf life of samples packaged in LDPE bags was dependent on a decrease in general appearance or an increase in microbiological counts, depending on the chemical treatment used.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
 All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License