• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.649-654
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• 2010

This study investigated the recognition of and preference for consumer root vegetables for the improvement of fresh-cut root vegetable quality. The questionnaires consisted of questions on general preference, purchasing locations and quality factors. Answers to 286 questionnaires were analyzed both descriptively and quantitatively using SPSS for Windows (Version 14.0). The principal results were as follows: 37% of the respondents preferred potatoes to other root vegetables; 52% purchased at wholemarket. Most consumers preferred fresh-cut root vegetables; 56% were un-satisfied with fresh-cut vegetables quality as high quality agents. The most considered factor in purchasing fresh-cut root vegetables was shape/appearance.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.210-216
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• 2012

The use of suitable sanitizers can increase the quality of fresh-cut produce and reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses. The objective of this study was to compare the washing effects of 100 mg/L sodium hypochlorite (SH) and 500 mg/L acidified sodium chlorite (ASC) on the prevention of enzymatic browning and the growth of microbial populations, including aerobic plate counts, E. coli, and coliforms, throughout storage at $4^{\circ}C$ and $10^{\circ}C$. Fresh-cut zucchini, cucumbers, green bell peppers, and root vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and radishes were used. Compared to SH washing, ASC washing significantly (p<0.05) reduced microbial contamination on the fresh-cut produce and prevented browning of fresh-cut potatoes and sweet potatoes during storage. More effective inhibition of aerobic plate counts and coliforms growth was observed on fresh-cut produce treated with ASC during storage at $10^{\circ}C$. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity of fresh-cut potatoes and sweet potatoes was more effectively inhibited after washing with ASC. The use of 500 mg/L ASC can provide effective antimicrobial and anti-browning treatments of fresh-cut produce, including processed root vegetables.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2007

Little information exists on how wash operations affect water quality, or the efficacy of sanitizers on vegetable quality and microbial reduction in fresh-cut carrot shreds. This study evaluated the efficacy of chlorine and ozone in reducing microbial loads and maintaining vegetable quality of carrot shreds. Fresh-cut carrot shreds were teated with various chlorine and ozone concentrations for differing times. The samples were then centrifuged to remove excess water, packaged in film, and stored at $5^{\circ}C$. The result indicated that varying the ozonated water wash time affected microbial growth the development of unpleasant odors, color, and the overall quality of carrot shreds. Ozonated water washing for 20 min maintained vegetable quality by inhibiting unpleasant odors, the development of whiteness, and by reducing microbial populations. A single chlorine water wash was effective and resulted in better vegetable quality when compared with two washes. Samples washed for 20 min in ozonated water, however, had better vegetable quality and smaller microbial counts compared to samples washed once in chlorine water A 20 min ozonated water wash is an attractive method for the maintenance of vegetable quality and shelf-life in fresh-cut carrot shreds.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2008

The market sales of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables have grown rapidly in recent decades as a result of changes in consumer trend. Choosing the proper pretreatment of fruit and vegetables before minimally processing is very important because appearance is the most fundamental factors affecting the quality of fresh-cut products. This review describes the biochemical bases for color changes of fruit and vegetables including browning, discoloration, and color changes of carrots and alliums. Understanding pathway of pigments in minimally processed fruit and vegetable and preventing the way of color change should be emphasized for successive packaging system. This review also describes pretreatment of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables to improve the prolonging the shelf-life and maintenance of its qualities.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.295-303
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• 2007

As a result of life-style changes, consumer's concerns of food have shifted from calories and nutrition to health and convenience. Fresh-cut products are one such new direction for fruit and vegetable consumption. In this study, the vitamin C, mineral, and pesticide contents of various fresh-cut products were analyzed. According to sensory evaluations, the key reason for a lower than expected overall acceptability of many fresh-cut products is that they are likely to have browning and can easily lose their freshness. Also, the sensory evaluation showed that shriveling, the degree of browning, softening around the cut edge, and off-flavors were the primary factors affecting the quality of fresh-cut products. As a nutritional factor of quality, vitamin C content was not practical with regard to fresh-cut lettuce because the level was very low. For product safety, residual pesticides were detected in the fresh-cut products, but the results showed that all items were under permitted levels and considered safe. In evaluation of the microbial levels of the fresh-cut market products, the levels of viable cells, mold, yeast, coliform bacteria, and enterobacteriaceae were not significantly different based on the summer and winter seasons. The levels of S. aureus and Listeria spp. in the products were higher during the summer season than the winter.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.319-325
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• 2020

Widespread consumption of fresh-cut vegetables without cooking results in ingestion of major foodborne pathogens including Bacillus cereus. In this study, we aimed to develop a method to rapidly detect B. cereus in fresh-cut vegetables by combining commercial PCR analysis with enrichment of the pathogenic levels. A mixture of B. cereus strains (KCTC1013, KCTC1014, KCTC1092, KCTC1094, and KCTC3624) was inoculated on the surface of fresh-cut cabbage lettuce (20 g) and baby leafy vegetables (10 g) to concentration 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 log CFU/g. Eighty milliliters of TSB with 0.15% polymyxin B was used for cabbage lettuce, and 90 mL of medium was used for baby leafy vegetables and incubated at 42℃ for 0, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 h. One milliliter of the enriched media was plated on mannitol-egg yolk-polymyxin agar for quantification, and another 1 mL was used for DNA extraction for PCR analysis. Additionally, the minimum number of sub-samples to be tested from a pack of fresh-cut vegetable samples was determined using 5 sub-samples. The results from this study showed that for detecting B. cereus in fresh-cut cabbage lettuce, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 h enrichment were required to at least detect 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 log CFU/g of B. cereus, respectively. B. cereus in fresh-cut baby leafy vegetables could be detected after 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 h of enrichment at 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 log CFU/g, respectively, using a combination of enrichment and PCR analysis. To determine if a pack of fresh-cut vegetable is positive, the minimum number of sub-samples should be 3. These results can be used to develop a rapid detection method to semi-quantify B. cereus in fresh-cut vegetable samples combining enrichment and PCR.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.125-133
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• 2011

This study was carried out to strengthen productivity and employee management through the development of simple pre-processed foods based on Hansik (Korean foods) and to investigate the utilization of fresh vegetable menus, pretreatment, and cooking time in the preparation of vegetable side dishes. The reasons for not using pretreated foods were increased cost, required product size is not available, and not hygienic. The acceptable rate of increase in cost when purchasing simple pre-processed foods was under 10%. The expected developed products of simple pre-processed vegetable foods were balloon flower root salad, seasoned green vegetables, and sheredded white radish. The expected developed products of simple mixed vegetable pre-processed foods were deodeok+balloon flower root and white radish+pear. Based on these findings, to increase the utilization of simple preprocessed foods, development of various product sizes and sauces is needed, cost must be reduced, and hygiene improved.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 2022

Recently, the purchase of fresh-cut produce and meal kits has increased. Ready-to-eat (RTE) fresh-cut products have potentially hazard of cross-contamination of various microorganisms in the processes of peeling, slicing, dicing, and shredding. There are frequent cases of protozoa food poisoning, such as Cyclospora and Cryptosporidium, caused by fresh-cut products. The objective of the study is to investigate the microbiological qualities of various types of RTE fresh-cut products in the domestic on/offline markets. RTE fresh-cut fruits cup (n=100), fresh-cut vegetables (n=50), and vegetables in meal kits (Vietnamese spring rolls and white radish rolls kits, n=50) were seasonally analyzed. The contamination levels of hygienic indicator organisms, yeast and mold (YM), and foodborne pathogens (Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., and Escherichia coli O157:H7) were monitored. Overall, the lowest microbiological qualities of meal kits vegetables were observed, followed by RTE fresh-cut fruits cup and fresh-cut vegetables. Contamination levels of total aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and YM in meal kits vegetables were 5.91, 3.90, and 4.71 logs CFU/g, respectively. From the qualitative analysis, 6 out of 200 RTE fresh-cut products (3%) returned positive result for S. aureus. From the quantitative analysis, the contamination levels of S. aureus in purple cabbage from a meal-kit and fresh-cut pineapple were below the acceptable limit (100 CFU/g). Staphylococcus enterotoxin seg and sei genes were detected in RTE fresh-cut celery and red cabbage from meal-kits, respectively. S. aureus contamination must be carefully controlled during the manufacturing processes of RTE fresh-cut products. Neither Cyclospora cayetanensis nor Cryptosporidium parvum was detected in the samples of RTE fresh-cut products and vegetables from meal-kits from the Korean retail markets.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.432-440
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• 2016

The consumption of pre-treated vegetables (including fresh-cut vegetables) that are washed, peeled, and trimmed has been significantly increased because of their easy use for cooking. Vegetable cutting machines have been widely utilized for producing fresh-cut vegetables or agricultural products of different sizes; however, the design standard is not established for specific types of agricultural products. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine mechanical properties (compressive and shear forces) of targeted agricultural products (radish, carrot, squash, cucumber, shiitake mushroom, and sweet potato) for developing a multipurpose vegetable cutting machine. According to ASAE standard (s368.3), compressive and shear forces of targeted agricultural products were measured by using a custom built UTM (universal testing machine). Shape type of samples and speed ranges (5 - 15 mm/min) of loading rate on bioyield and shear points varied depending on the targeted agricultural product. The range of averaged bioyield points of targeted agricultural products were between 7.89 and 146.98 N. On the other hand, their averaged shear points ranged from 22.50 to 53.47 N. Results clearly showed that the bioyield and shear points of targeted agricultural products were thoroughly affected by their components. As measuring compressive and shear forces of a variety of agricultural products, it will be feasible to calculate blade cutting force for designing multipurpose vegetable cutting machine.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.91-97
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• 2011

This study was performed to assess the microbiological quality and potential health risk of fresh-cut produce and organic vegetables sampled from supermarkets and department stores in Korea. A total of 96 samples comprised three types of fresh-cut produce (sprouts, mixed-vegetables, fruit) and three types of organic vegetables (lettuce, perilla leaf, green pepper). The samples were analyzed for total viable cell counts, coliforms, Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Bacillus cereus, and Staphylococcus aureus. The microbiological counts of fruit were very low. Sprouts were highly contaminated by total viable cell counts ($8.3{\pm}0.57$ log CFU/g), Enterobacteriaceae ($7.1{\pm}0.76$ log CFU/g), and coliforms ($4.9{\pm}0.40$ log MPN/g), and showed a high incidence level of B. cereus ($2.9{\pm}0.48$ log CFU/g). Of the fresh-cut produce analyzed, six (13.6%) mixed-vegetable salads were E. coli positive. S. aureus was detected in only one sprout sample and one mixed-vegetable salad, and its contamination levels were under 2 log CFU/g, which is appropriate for Korean standards (<3 log CFU/g) of fresh-cut produce. Of the organic vegetables, lettuces were highly contaminated by total viable cell counts ($6.4{\pm}0.74$ log CFU/g), Enterobacteriaceae ($5.7{\pm}0.98$ log CFU/g), and coliforms ($3.7{\pm}1.72$ log MPN/g). Two (13.6%) organic lettuce and one (7.1%) perillar leaf sample were E. coli positive, and S. aureus was detected in one lettuce and two perilla leaf samples. Salmonella spp., Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Listeria monocytogenes were not detected in any of the fresh-cut produce or organic vegetables analyzed.