An Investigation on Quality of Japanese Sea Bass (Lateolabrax japonicas) Using Chitosan Assisted with Origanum vulgare Oil and Allicin

The coating effects of Origanum vulgare oil and allicin combined with chitosan (CH) on the characteristics of Japanese sea bass (Lateolabrax japonicas) at 4 ± 0.5C storage were evaluated. Four different treatments were used: control without coating, chitosan coating (CH), chitosan-O. vulgare oil (0.5%) coating (CH + O) and chitosan-allicin (0.2%) coating (CH + A). Microbiological (total viable count), physicochemical (pH, TVB-N), lipid oxidative (PV and TBARS) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances), and protein attributes (total sulfhydrys content, Ca2+-ATPase activity and TCA-soluble protein) were periodically assessed over 20 days. The results indicated that CH + O and CH + A could reduce microorganism counts, inhibit increase of total volatile basic nitrogen, peroxide value, TBA value and decrease protein decomposition. This study showed that chitosan-O. vulgare oil coating and chitosan-allicin coating might be promising new biopreservatives on maintaining Japanese sea bass quality. Practical Applications There is a growing concern that the use of chemical synthetic preservatives in food industry may cause various potential hazards to human being health. Thus, safe natural food preservatives have become the priority in food industry to improve the safety of food products for decades. The antimicrobial effect of essential oils has been studied earlier. This is the first report on the antimicrobial activity of O. vulgare oil, allicin with the combined effect of chitosan. The results of the present study indicate that the antimicrobial activity of chitosan-O. vulgare oil coating and chitosan-allicin coating could be useful in food processing and preservation.