There have been no reports of particular resistant microorganisms
or pathogen strains with unique resistance to the
technology, the most resistant pathogens would likely be
the same as those for thermal processes (USA-FDA, 2000).
Pereira et al. (2007) have reported lower D and z values
for the inactivation of E. coli and B. licheniformis when
submitted to ohmic heating. In this research, comparing
conventional against ohmic heating, the thermal history
of the samples analyzed was adjusted to match. The D
values observed for E. coli at 65 C were 3.5 0.2 and
0.86 min for conventional and ohmic process respectively.
The z values were also reported as 23.1 and 8.4 C respectively.
The observed results indicate that the electric current
may have affected the microbial death rate (Pereira et al.,
2007). Similar observations were obtained in the same
study for the spore inactivation of B. licheniformis. Considering
both microorganisms strain, ohmic heating presented
a lower D value. This fact indicates that an additional nonthermal
lethal effect occurred under ohmic heating, due to
the presence and effects of the electric current over vegetative
cells of E. coli and bacterial spores of B. licheniformis