EFFICIENCY OF ELECTROLYZED WATER (EW) IN MITIGATING THE MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION OF BEEF MEAT

*Ebtisam M.A. Mesalam, Amira A. Elokle and Mona Momtaz M. Abd el-aziz

ABSTRACT

As an increasing international need for natural sanitizers and disinfectants especially in food industries, instead of chemical ones, that is due to their known disadvantages as their toxic residues in food as well as their bad effect on nature. There are many studies had been applied on Electrolyzed water (EW), as a novel broad-spectrum disinfectant and cleaner, which has been widely used for several years. As studies on electrolyzed water (EW) for decontamination and shelf- life extension of beef are limited this study was conducted to evaluate the beneficial effects of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAcEW) and slightly alkaline electrolyzed water (SAlEW) on the microbiological, chemical, and sensory qualities of fresh beef during cold storage. The results showed reduction in the total bacterial count, Enterobacteriaceae, coliform count as well as E. coli and S. aureus count and decrease amount of TVBN and TBA in treated samples compared to the untreated samples with a significance differences (p≤0,05) between the SAcEW treated samples and the untreated ones. Also the results demonstrated that SAcEW and SAlEW could effectively extend the shelf life of beef samples to 10 and 8 days at 4°C, respectively in comparison with 5-6 days for the untreated samples.

Keywords: Electrolyzed water – beef meat – microbial contamination- chemical quality.