Raw eggs are widely used in the making of surimi paste and confectioneries. Every year, however, eggs result in cases of food poisoning, many of which are due to Salmonella sp. contamination. Low-temperature pasteurization has been employed to combat Salmonella sp., but at the price of altering the physical properties of the egg white. This study investigates the possibility of using a high-pressure treatment to sterilize egg whites and thereby eliminate Salmonella sp.

In these experiments, egg-white turbidity (absorbance at 660nm) increased with increasing pressure. As absorbance is a good indicator of the onset of egg-white denaturation, A600nm=0.20 was deemed to delineate the onset of denaturization. Treatments at 200 MPa for 30 minutes, 300 MPa for 5 minutes and 400 MPa for 5 seconds at room temperature did not denature the egg white or exceed the 0.20 limit. High pressure was also successful in reducing Salmonella sp. Pressure and temperature treatments used in combination and repetitive high-pressure treatments yielded even more effective results. Treatments of 200 MPa at 50'C for 30 minutes and five repetitive treatments of 300 MPa at room temperature for 1 minute both reduced viability of the bacteria to 10^-6.