Researchers are working overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:
Transcript
Researchers are working
overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:
Food processors expose produce like lettuce to ozone for a few seconds or minutes to kill bacteria.
Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone.
Keener is a food process engineer at Purdue University.
He attaches the device to the outside of food packages – like a bag of lettuce – and applies electrodes that send high voltage through the bag.
“Visually it’s very Frankenstein-ish. It’s a safe process, there is a high voltage, but it’s similar to a spark you’d get with an electric fence.”
Keener says the ozone spends more time with the food so it kills more bacteria.
There’s a problem though – in some of their tests the device turned green spinach white.
So there are a few kinks to work out. But food companies are interested and we might see this commercialized in a year or two.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.