The reason they are working with ground beef is because of the high incidence of contamination because of high surface area. Ground beef tends to have the most chances of problems. Our technology will kill the E. coli present without changing the meat in any other way, she adds. With the E-beam, a power source pumps 500,000 volts of electricity into a cathode ray tube, where an electromagnet forms the resulting electrons into a beam that passes through a vacuum to keep them in a straight line. A scanner directs the beam at food passing below on a conveyor belt.
Shielding surrounds the machine to protect workers.
When the electron beam hits E. coli, it disrupts their DNA, killing them in a fraction of a second. This technology kills the live tissue, Unklesbay explains. She says the E-beam technology will extend shelf life of ground beef. If the product is treated when frozen and kept frozen until it is cooked, she says there will be zero risk of illness. Processing is being done at the Titan Corp., a manufacturer of the accelerators, in Sioux City.