Copied with a hat tip to Soylent News (one of several groups attempting to replace Slashdot with a better news-sharing collaboration, recommended)
Blue LEDs Are the Future of Food Preservation |
from the blue-lightsaber-to-the-rescue dept. |
posted by janrinok on Friday August 07, @15:44 (Science) |
———————————————————————————————————————————————
[0]AnonTechie writes:
Blue LEDs, once confined to the world of digital displays and Blu-ray players, have just found a new calling: food preservation. New research at the National University of Singapore shows the potential of using blue LEDs as a chemical-free method to kill bacteria that lead to spoilage.
Earlier this year, public concern about artificial preservatives pushed fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s, Subway, and Panera to seriously [1]rethink the ways they keep their food fresh. Using blue LEDs could potentially kill the same bacteria that preservatives do without any of the scary, outrage-rousing chemicals.
The researchers looked at the effect of blue LED exposure on three of the major colonies of bugs that cause food to rot and stomachs to turn: Listeria, E. coli, and Salmonella. Their paper, published in the journal [2]Food Microbiology, showed that the blue lights succeeded in inactivating the bacteria, with even better results in cold temperatures and acidic conditions. Foods like fresh-cut fruit, chilled meats, and ready-to-eat seafood, like sushi and lox, could all someday benefit from the pathogen-killing lights.
[3]Blue LEDs Are the Future of Food Preservation
[4]Original Submission
Discuss this story at:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15/08/07/0815244
Links:
0. AnonTechie - SoylentNews User
2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740002014003116
3. Blue LEDs Are the Future of Food Preservation
4. Blue LEDs Are the Future of Food Preservation: SoylentNews Submission