Whether ginseng can kill harmful bacteria in food is under investigation by university researchers. The research is being led by Daniel Fung, a principal investigator with the Food Safety Consortium, a joint project of Kansas State, the University of Arkansas and Iowa State University.
Fung's work was reported in the summer edition of the consortium's newsletter. To explore the food safety potential of ginseng , Fung and his research team prepared a series of solutions of ginseng tea in distilled water. The researchers are studying whether ginseng can suppress pathogens from growing in the tea and in the human digestive system, the consortium reported.
The early results look promising. Fung and his team have studied Listeria monocytogenes and plan to study E. coli next. Finding that ginseng delayed the growth of L. monocytogenes for six hours, Fung theorized that if a person was exposed to E. coli in food and drank ginseng tea, the tea might suppress the organism. The team is testing up to 400 combinations of varying amounts of ginseng and pathogenic bacteria to determine what level is needed to suppress different levels of pathogens on food. Fung emphasized that ginseng has not been found to kill microbes, but that it can stop their growth long enough to remove threats to the digestive system.
Because ginseng is a natural product that is already being consumed by people, Fung predicted that the possibility of its gaining approval for this new use is very high. "We just want to find out if it can kill the organisms or not," he said, adding that if it does, "then maybe we can extract it to put [it] in different foods," he said. One potential application is for fresh-cut food products, according to Fung, who suggested that by spraying processed vegetables and salads with ginseng compounds, the growth of pathogens could be delayed.
- SOURCE : Food Labeling News1998.09.30
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