Essential oils

Abstract

The exploration of naturally occurring antimicrobials for food preservation receives increasing attention due to consumer awareness of natural food products and a growing concern of microbial resistance towards conventional preservatives. The use of essential oils, as an alternative to the use of synthetic chemicals, to preserve quality of fresh and minimally processed fruits and vegetables has been investigated in several works through in vitro and in vivo experiments. Some oils presented antimicrobial and antioxidant activities that indicate clearly their potential to become technologically useful products as sanitizing agents. This chapter describes the use of essential oils from different sources and their control of postharvest microbial decay and overall quality preservation of fresh produce. Also, it includes a discussion about the use of essential oils as potential inhibitors of quorum sensing mechanism to control bacterial spoilage and pathogenesis in food related microorganisms.