Raw and/or insufficient heat-cooked chicken meats are the major vehicles of human campylobacteriosis in Japan. These often cause human foodborne salmonellosis as well. Hence, the establishment of effective treatments for reduction of these pathogens from chicken meats in combination with heat processing is an important issue for food safety. In this study, the effects of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment prior to heat cooking for reduction of foodborne pathogens in cooked chicken meat was examined. Raw yakitori (Japanese chicken brochette) samples which were treated with HHP at 500 MPa for 10 min showed negative results of Campylobacter and Salmonella by detection methods after cooking at 200̊C for 5 min. On the other hand, HHP treatments with 300 MPa and 400 MPa for 10 min were not sufficient for inactivation of these pathogens under condition used in this study. Color and hardness of the HHP-treated yakitori samples were almost comparable to the samples without HHP treatment after cooking. These results suggest the effectiveness of HHP treatment prior to heat cooking to reduce the foodborne cases caused by insufficient cooked meats.

Corona discharge has recently been reported to be effective in preventing food poisoning caused by histamine-producing bacteria. In this study, the effects of corona discharge on histamine molecules were investigated. Corona discharge was applied to 1 nmol of histamine from a distance of 8.5 cm, and the remaining histamine was quantified by LC-MS/MS. Histamine levels decreased significantly 48 and 96 h after corona discharge, respectively. In addition, an ion peak at m/z 140 was newly detected from the corona-discharged samples. MS/MS fragmentation analysis of the m/z 140 ion annotated that it was the formylated form of histamine. It was suggested that corona discharge could prevent food poisoning by formylating and inactivating histamine.