Food Spoilage

Dr. Dimos

Food Spoilage
A product is considered spoiled if
sensory changes make it
unacceptable to the consumer.

Food Spoilage: The Conditions for

Spoilage
Good culture
medium for
microbes
Water content
pH range
Physical structure
Oxygen availability
Temperature

Meat
Lactobacillus

Leuconosto

Common bacterial
spoilers:
Pseudomonas
Shewanella
putrefaciens
Acinetobacter
Moraxella

Fish

Trimethylamine-N-oxide
Trimethylamine

Methane Metabolism
NADH + H+ + trimethylamine-N-oxide = NAD+ +
trimethylamine + H2O.

Histidine Decarboxylase

Histidine

Histamine

Crustaceans and Molluscan Shellfish

Poultry and Eggs

Salmonella

Milk and Dairy Products

Milk and Dairy
Spoilers
Alcaligenes
Enterobacter
Serratia
marcescens
Clostridium
Yeasts
Lactobacillus
Streptococcu
s
Campylobact
er

Breads and Bakery Products

Bacillus spp. cause ropy bread

Soft cheesy texture with long, stringy threads

Two fungi
Aspergillus flavus
Aflatoxins - implicated in liver and colon cancer
Wheat
Peanuts
Soybeans
Corn
Claviceps purpurea
Ergot poisoning
Neurological disorder
due to toxin
Rye
Wheat

Aflatoxin

Ergot Alkaloids