Plasma-activated water (PAW) and slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) as beef thawing media for enhancing microbiological safety

Microbial decontamination during the thawing process would offer an effective intervention step to ensure food safety. In this study, plasma-activated water (PAW) and slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) are proposed as the thawing media to assure microbiological safety and retain quality attributes of beef. Compared to the conventional air thawing (AT) and water thawing (WI), PAW thawing (PT) and SAEW thawing (ST) were found to efficiently inactivate the total bacteria, fungi and yeast in beef by 0.83 -1.76 logs. In addition, PT and ST did not pose any detrimental effect on the physicochemical and sensory quality attributes of beef compared with AT, WT and microwave thawing (MT). The oxidation of lipid and proteins and the structure of proteins in beef was better retarded by PT and ST. PAW and SAEW as active thawing media provided thawed beef with higher microbial safety and maintained quality attributes compared with conventional thawing methods.