Jul 31, 2018 12:32 AM EDT
Cooking oil coating prevents bacteria from growing on food processing equipment
Many foods produced on an industrial scale include raw ingredients mixed together in enormous stainless steel machines that can be difficult to clean. The University of Toronto research team proposes a simple new solution: trapping a thin layer of cooking oil at the metal surface to fill in microscopic scrapes, cracks and fissures and create a barrier to bacterial attachment. This solution resulted in a 1,000x reduction in bacterial levels inside the industrial machines tested.