UK: decontaminating almonds and nuts with compressed carbon dioxide

Almond Kernel

United Kingdom

Published Dec 2, 2020

Tridge summary

Hardly a day goes by without manufacturers recalling food tainted by impurities. Even dry foods, generally thought to be safe because they lack the water pathogens needed to thrive, are often pulled from store shelves. Harmful microorganisms, such as salmonella, can colonize these foods during processing. Almonds, a popular treat around Christmastime, are one of the mo-re susceptible foods. Now researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environment, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT have developed a new process to kill off germs that befall almonds and nuts: using compressed carbon dioxide to decontaminate food.

Original content

According to the German consumer protection agency, the number of food recalls rose rapidly between 2015 and 2019. If a product poses a health risk, the manufacturer has to take it off the market and notify consumers. Processing can affect the quality of food, particularly that of plant-based products that are consumed raw. They may be contaminated with salmonella that cause food poisoning. These bacteria can even spread to dry foods, which experts call products with low water activity. This group of low-moisture foods includes almonds, nuts, dried fruits, spices, milk powder and even tea."Salmonella can go dormant to survive on almonds. In the process, they produce additional biomass that protects them from desiccation. If water enters the picture, salmonella then proliferate explosively. But it takes just ten to one hundred of these bacteria to cause food poisoning. Contaminated almonds that make their way into production facilities after harvesting can also contaminate other ...

Source: Phys