Behold the 9-day fresh strawberry: New approach to slowing rot doubles berry shelf life
Strawberry lovers rejoice: the days of unpacking your luscious berries from the refrigerator only to find them sprouting wispy goatees of mold may be numbered. A research team from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Components and Health Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., and Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc. (SETi) in Columbia, S.C., has demonstrated that low irradiance ultra-violet (UV) light directed at strawberries over long exposure periods at low temperature and very high humidity—typical home refrigerator conditions—delays spoilage. The team used a novel device incorporating light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that emit UV at wavelengths found in sunlight transmitted through Earth's atmosphere. The results, which will be presented next week at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO: 2013), are significant because previous attempts using traditional UV light sources for storage of produce resulted in severe drying, and it was unknown if the advantages of long exposure to low-level UV light would...