266 Chapter 14
University, Kansas State University, and
Texas A & M. Lazar (2006b) mentioned that
irradiation facilities are expensive to erect
and only around forty of them exist in the
United States today, mostly specializing in
treating medical equipment, animal feed, and
spices, while lacking capacity for meat
processing.Phage Technology
Bacteriophages (also known as phages), from
“ bacteria ” and Greek phagin , “ to eat, ” are
viruses that infect bacteria. Phages consist of
an outer protein shell with enclosed DNA or
RNA. Phages infect, grow, and multiply only
inside bacterial cells. Lytic phages cause bac-
terial lysis (cell death), which leads to the
spread of more phage in the environment.
Some phages lyse only a fraction of infected
cells and keep other cells alive while continu-
ously shedding new phages. Phages capable
of lysogeny integrate phage DNA into the
bacterial host DNA without causing cell
death. Most reports on the use of phage tech-
nology focus on applications to control meat -
derived bacterial pathogens. For example,
specifi c phages have been investigated
against Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria
monocytogenes , Campylobacter jejuni , and
Salmonella enterica Typhimurium (Bigwood
et al. 2008 ). In 2006, L. monocytogenes
phage was approved by the FDA as a food
antimicrobial (Stahl 2007 ).Use of irradiation of up to 4.5 kGy for
refrigerated red meats, up to 7 kGy for frozen
meats, and up to 3 kGy for poultry is permit-
ted in the United States (FDA 1999 ) and
is refl ected in the U.S. Code of Federal
Regulations (9 CFR Parts 381 and 424).
Unfortunately, this technology has not been
widely accepted due to logistics challenges,
opposition by activist groups, and resistance
from processors (Lazar 2006b ). In the United
States, the main reason for lack of use is
logistics, with few irradiation facilities avail-
able with suffi cient capacity for large - scale
processing. For example, Food Technology
Service runs a Cobalt - 60 facility in Florida,
which is far removed from major animal pro-
duction areas in the Great Plains. SureBeam
in Iowa ran an e - beam facility in the heart of
animal production areas but went bankrupt in
- Sadex Corp. now manages the former
Surebeam facility. Smaller research irradia-
tion facilities are housed at Iowa State
Figure 14.1. Radura logo (international and U.S.
FDA versions).
Table 14.2. Effi cacy of gamma irradiation on meat products
Meat product Microorganism Dose for 5 log 10
reduction, kGyReferenceMarinated beef rib Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus
aureus, Bacillus cereus,
Salmonella typhimurium3 to 4 Jo et al. 2004Fresh broiler chicken Total aerobic plate count
Coliform count> 5
3 to 5Javanmard et al. 2006
Raw chicken breast
and thighB. cereus, Enterobacter cloacae,
Alcaligenes faecalis< 2 Min et al. 2007
Ground pork Listeria monocytogenes 3 Bari et al. 2006
Fresh pork loins Pseudomonas spp., psychrotrophs 3 Dogbevi et al. 1999