Short communication: Cheese supplemented with Thymus algeriensis oil, a potential natural food preservative

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Bukvicki D, Giweli A, Stojkovic D, Vujisic L, Tesevic V, Nikolic M, Sokovic M, Marin PD.

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J Dairy Sci. 2018 May;101(5):3859-3865. doi: 10.3168/jds.2017-13714. Epub 2018 Feb 22.

Abstract

The essential oil of Thymus algeriensis was analyzed as a potential preservative in soft cheese. We developed a novel method to test the preserving properties of essential oil in soft cheese. Contamination incidence of Penicillium aurantiogriseum was absent after 30 d of storage at 4°C with 25 µL of essential oil added. The antimicrobial activity was tested against 8 bacteria and 8 fungi. Thymus algeriensis oil showed inhibitory activity against tested bacteria at 0.03 to 0.09 mg/mL, and bactericidal activity was achieved at 0.05 to 0.15 mg/mL. For antifungal activity, minimum inhibitory concentrations ranged between 0.01 and 0.04 mg/mL and minimum fungicidal concentrations between 0.01 and 0.04 mg/mL. Furthermore, the oil was also screened for antiradical activity using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl assay. The results showed that the oil was active and achieved half-maximal inhibitory activity at 0.132 mg/mL. We used gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry to investigate the volatile compounds from the oil. Carvacrol was identified as the main compound in the oil, represented by 80.9% of the total constituents, followed by p-cymene (7.7%). CI – Copyright © 2018 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Link/DOI: 10.3168/jds.2017-13714