Edible Antimicrobial Films Might Someday Protect Meats From Pathogens

An edible, tasteless, transparent polymer film derived from a fungus might provide at least part of a solution to the problem of foodborne pathogens in the meat and poultry industries. U.S. researchers tested whether polymer films made from pullulan and permeated with essential oils derived from rosemary, oregano and zinc oxide or silver nanoparticles protected meats from harmful microbes. They found that meats vacuum-wrapped with the films not only killed germs already on the meats, but they protected the meats from further microbial incursions. The next step is to figure out how to “co-extrude” the antimicrobial films with conventional plastic films to combine the oxygen barrier of the plastic with the antimicrobial properties of the edible film.