Decontamination of meat is commonly practiced to get rid of or decrease the microbial presence on the meat surface. Dielectric barrier discharge cold atmospheric plasma (DBD‐CAP) as innovative technology is a food microbial inactivation technique considered in high regard by food scientists and engineers in present times. However, cold atmospheric plasma application is at the experimental stage, due to lack of sufficient information on its mode of action in inactivating microbes, food shelf‐life extensibility, whereas, the nutritional value of food is preserved. In this review, we have appraised recent work on DBD‐CAP concerning the decontamination treatment of meat products, highlighting the processing value results on the efficacy of the DBD‐CAP microbial inactivation technique. Also, the paper will review the configurations, proposed mechanisms, and chemistry of DBD‐CAP. Satisfactory microbial inactivation was observed. In terms of DBD‐CAP application on sensory evaluation, inferences from reviewed literature showed that DBD has no significant effect on meat color and tenderness, whereas in contrast, TBARS values of fresh and processed meat are affected. DBD seems economically efficient and environmentally sustainable.
The effects of moderate thermosonication (MTS) on the quality quartet: physico-chemical, microbial, nutritional and sensory qualities of orange juice (OJ) inoculated with Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris (AAT) were studied during 24 days of storage at ambient and refrigerated temperatures. The bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity of OJ decreased with storage, while the pectin methyl esterase (PME) increased. Nonetheless, noticeable changes were observed from the 12th day of storage. There was no obvious (p > 0.05) variation in pH and total soluble solids. To determine the nutritional and microbial quality characteristics of OJ during storage, non-linear kinetic curves were successfully fitted with least square fitting polynomial and four-parameter log-logistic distribution models. The E-nose sensors succeeded in discriminating between the aroma of non-treated and treated OJ based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Furthermore, terpenes, alcohol and partially aromatic compounds were the main spoilage indicators of OJ during storage based on E-nose analysis and confirmed by HS-SPME-GC/MS analysis. Thus, MTS significantly extended the shelf life of the quality quartet of natural OJ at 4 °C. E-nose-GC/MS fusion offered odor fingerprints to AAT microorganisms that can be used as spoilage index without using traditional food analysis techniques. The proposed approach can be used as an alternative tool for rapid detection of spoilage microorganisms in OJ.