Contamination of knives and graters by bacterial foodborne pathogens during slicing and grating of produce

Food Microbiology
Marilyn C EricksonYnes Ortega

Abstract

Poor hygiene and improper food preparation practices in consumers' homes have previously been demonstrated as contributing to foodborne diseases. To address potential cross-contamination by kitchen utensils in the home, a series of studies was conducted to determine the extent to which the use of a knife or grater on fresh produce would lead to the utensil's contamination with Escherichia coli O157:H7 or Salmonella enterica. When shredding inoculated carrots (ca. 5.3 log CFU/carrot), all graters became contaminated and the number of E. coli O157:H7 present on the utensil was significantly greater than Salmonella (p < 0.05). Contamination of knives after slicing inoculated produce (4.9-5.4 log CFU/produce item) could only be detected by enrichment culture. After slicing tomatoes, honeydew melons, strawberries, cucumbers, and cantaloupes, the average prevalence of knife contamination by the two pathogens was 43%, 17%, 15%, 7%, and 3%, respectively. No significant increase in the incidence or level of contamination occurred on the utensils when residues were present (p > 0.05); however, subsequent contamination of 7 produce items processed with the contaminated utensils did occur. These results highlight the necessity of proper sa...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 6, 2020·Frontiers in Microbiology·Pierluigi Di CiccioFrancesco Chiesa
Jan 31, 2020·Food Microbiology·Yan QiXiangyu Deng
Aug 25, 2021·Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials·Telma DantasFilipe Silva

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