High Temperature Measurements of Multicomponent Foods

Low water activity and low moisture foods are generally considered safe due to the inability of microorganisms to grow under such conditions. Recently, there have been a surprising number of recalls on low water activity foods due to pathogens such as Salmonella agona. To understand this issue, we investigated the dependence of water activity on S. agona inactivation in multicomponent (carbohydrate, protein, fat) food systems. Initial results indicated that a high fat multicomponent food requires a longer time for complete S. agona inactivation. Whereas a high carbohydrate or high protein multicomponent composition would require a shorter time for the completion of S. agona inactivation. We conducted a follow on study to confirm water activity at high temperatures and the starting moisture contents of each multicomponent food system using a series of moisture content and water activity measurements. To date, the initial and current data has been consistent across the studies. These results imply that further studies are required to understand how different types of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats will differ while undergoing S. agona inactivation. These further studies may be looked into by using various different carbohydrate, protein, fats compounds and structures that may affect the S. agona inactivation significantly, on structure alone or combinations of various different structures.