Tell us about the antimicrobial properties of cranberries.
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Video Text: Vivian Wu - Assistant Professor Food Science/Human
Nutrition: "We look at five important food-borne pathogens and we found
out that cranberries show significant effect, the growth incubation of
those five important food-borne pathogens. Because those five important
food-borne pathogens contribute to, you know, food-borne illness and
most of them we can [unintelligable] a lot. So that gave us a direction
we want to look at whether cranberry has a potential application value
in food application. So, next we added a cranberry concentrate to ground
beef, for example. We found out that cranberry still can eliminate,
inhibit the growth of microorganisms even though those microorganisms
were protected by the complicated food structures. For example, protein,
fat, all these things. So, that is a very, very good discovery. We look
at the application value from the sensory evaluation point because you
want to know by adding cranberry to a burger, for example, will the
consumer like it? So, we did a sensory evaluation in this building
because we have a very decent sensory laboratory and we found out the
consumer actually likes burgers added with cranberry compared to burgers
without cranberry because of the flavor. Because we are also concerned
by color and by adding cranberry concentrate, up to five percent,
actually consumers accept it. And I think in the future, we also want to
evaluate that this study based on if we tell the consumer, you know,
cranberry provides additional health benefits. So, I believe a lot of
people will prefer choosing burgers that have cranberry concentrate."
