Control of Salmonella in foods by using essential oils: A review

During the past several years, limit of Salmonella infections has been exceeded dramatically. In spite of achieving a low rate infection in Salmonella infections, this microbe has become a challenge in food industry due to its wide-spread distribution worldwide. Salmonella bacteria are not only responsible for mild to severe infections but also they cause life-threatening infections. Salmonella bacteria are zoonotic in nature and hamper the food quality severely as well as being hazardous to human society. Several types of serotypic Salmonella have been reported; however, very less numbers of pathogens are infection responsible. Increase in foodborne infections caused by Salmonella types mainly occurs due to the development of new specific features in Salmonella majority, making them to adapt in any environmental condition. Also the alterations in human society with recent food processing and marketing methodology with live breeders contribute to facilitate these outbreaks. Salmonella resistant to commercial antibiotic drugs has emerged as a great health concern to the consumers. Literature survey has revealed that infection with Salmonella resistant to antibiotics has played a vital role to increased rate in foodborne infectious diseases. Extensive use of antibiotics in food industry against foodborne pathogens or food models has resulted in additional antibiotic resistance to Salmonella which has become a matter of great concern to the public health. There has been an increasing concern worldwide on therapeutic values of natural products. Nature has presented to humanity the gift of vast therapeutic antimicrobial agents of plant origins. There are multitudes of potential useful bioactive substances to be derived from plants. The significance of drugs cannot be over-emphasized with the recent trend of high percentage of resistance of microorganisms to the present day antibiotics. This review provides the informative literature data on antibacterial efficacy of plant essential oils (PEOs) and their volatiles. In addition, the suitability of PEOs and their volatile components for their practical applications in food or food products against Salmonella, a common cause of salmonellosis food poisoning has also been focused. The current knowledge of volatile oils and contents in food model system to control Salmonella has been discussed. Also a brief description on the legal aspects on how to use the volatile oils in food system has been presented, and the area for future research has been proposed. A mode of antibacterial action of PEOs along with their chemical nature has also been described. Although some data on Salmonella-related issues are presented, this review chiefly focused on in vivo practical utilization of plant volatile oils and components in food model-system as natural anti-Salmonella agents. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.