Minimal processing of Foods

19 important questions on Minimal processing of Foods

What is UHP/HHP?

Ultra high pressure processing.
High hydrostatic pressure

A lot of force is put on one point., over 75 MPa

Why does UHP/HHP work?

The membrane of the microorganism is damaged and therefore the cell dies. Since a cell can not live without the processes happening in the cell.

How does the inactivation by HHP go over time and aw-value?

The lower the water activity the more time is needed in order to inactivate the microorganisms.
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At what pressures do spores become inactivated?

1000 MPa

What is the effect of HHP on inactivation of spores?

The higher pressure the more spores inactivated but also depends on the type of spore bacteria.

Copnclusion spores can survive high pressure treatment

What is (PEF) processing?

Puls electric field processing.
The membrane of the microorganism breaks because:
20-60 kV/cm goes trough it.

The balance between + outside the cell and - inside the cell is disturbed and therefore holes are present in the cells. Therefore there is a dis-balance of compounds in and outside the cell and it will die.

However you do need a wet product like dairy, soup, sauces, fruit juices.

How is the effectivety of PEF processing influanced?

Type of patogen and pH.

The higher the pH the better the inactivation by PEF.

What is the lytic cycle of a virus?

This is the unpatient cycle.
The virus enters the cell. Starts replicating itself and and advantualy the cell will burst open and the virus will be spread.

What is the lytogenic cycle of a virus?

The unpatient cycle.
The DNA of the virus is build in the DNA of the micro-organism and also replicates when the cell is replicating. At a certain point one replication will due to a certain factor extreete the virus its DNA and now it can work as the same as the lytic cycle.

What is the holin-lysin module?

The two proteins that allows the viruses produced in the cell to leave the host cell.

The holin makes a hole in the membrane.
The lysin goes trough the holin and will break the cell wall.
Because there are a lot of components in the cell wall there are a lot of different lysins.

What are the two functional domains of a lysin?

One part is the cell binding domain: this will give specificity to the lysin and only binds to a certian part of the cell wall.

The other part is the catalytic domain: this will give the activity to the lysin. So this catalyses the break down of the cell wall.

Why do you usually need a mix of baterio phages?

You need a mix because they are super specific and they will only deactivate on type of listeria for instance, To deactivate more you will need a mix.

What can you do if people don't want to add bactero phages.

Just add the lysin because it will degrade the cell wall.

What can influance the activity of lysins?

The type of food sins the lysins might bind to different things in the food.

How can fermentation improve food safety?

This might be because acids are produced and the other organism can not stand this.
Or there is competition and the fermenting organism wins form the pathogen. 
But most important antimicrobial peptides. 

What are antimicrobial peptides?

Peptides produced by a specific micro-organism that will kill other micro-organisms by damaging the cell wall.
The producing micro-organism has an immunity mechanism for this peptide.
Very effective since it can work in the nM range.

What is the disadvantage of antimicrobial peptides?

They are very specific and they might work in the lab but not in food because many other components are present.

Why does antimicrobial peptides only work on grampositive bacteria?

This is because it works on the cell wall and the gram positive cell wall is easier to reach then the one of the gram negative cell wall. The - has two cell walls so the real cell wall is harder to reach.

What does a hurdle technique mean?

applying a combination of preservation methods.
Hurdle technology deliberately combines existing and new preservation techniques to establish a series of preservative factors (hurdles) that the microorganisms in question are unable to overcome (jump over). These hurdles may be temperature, water activity, acidity, redox potential, preservatives, and others.

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