Microbiological hazards associated with salt and nitrite reduction in cured meat products: control strategies based on antimicrobial effect of natural ingredients and protective microbiota

By M. Fraqueza, M. Laranjo, M. Elias, L. Patarata. Current Opinion in Food Science, 2021

92 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The consumers’ demand for low-salt and nitrite-free cured meat products forced the industry to introduce these products in the market assure their safety. Several strategies have been studied to obtain low-salt or nitrite-free meat products assessing mainly their sensory and technological characteristics. Only a few studies assessed their safety. To control microbial hazards, the current knowledge on food preservation should be applied in salt-reduced or nitrite-free meat products, searching for new technologies and employing them in a synergistic way to control pathogens. Protective starters may be an important inhibitory tool to control potential pathogens on low-salt or nitrite-free cured meat products. Vegetable extracts could successfully replace nitrite, if well controlled, to avoid the potential formation of nitrous compounds.

Subfields: Animal Science and Zoology, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/15833ba290e765399e95d6642e81c5ca525b9504