Real Italian pasta requires much effort to knead, shape, and cook until al dente.
Therefore, it is predictable that Italian researchers desired to make it survive longer before being discarded.
A research team from Italy spent months inventing the ideal procedure to extend the shelf life of pasta by 30 days.
The approach entails storing the pasta in the ideal environment and adding probiotics to the flour to prevent bacterial growth.
Fresh pasta, such as that prepared by an Italian mother, has a shelf life of about two to three days, but industrially produced pasta has a shelf life of between 30 and 90 days.
An experiment determined that the new approach allows fresh pasta to last up to 120 days.
Previous research by other groups of Italian scientists suggested that pizza may protect against disease and death and that pasta consumption is associated with a smaller waist circumference.
Dr. Francesca De Leo, a co-author of the study from the National Research Council (CNR), the largest public research institution in Italy, stated: ‘This research was commissioned by pasta manufacturers who wanted to extend the shelf life of their product, but it is also unfortunate for consumers who purchase ravioli or tortellini to have it spoil in the refrigerator.
‘It is quite time-consuming to travel to the grocery store to get extra pasta.
Utilizing an innovative technical approach, our research could also aid in reducing food waste.
In the publication Frontiers in Microbiology, the researchers state that homemade, artisanal, and industrial fresh pasta products like filled ravioli are all susceptible to bacterial contamination.
Therefore, the majority of fresh pasta marketed today is manufactured using heat treatment, which is equivalent to pasteurization for pasta.
In modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), oxygen is eliminated and replaced with various gases within a plastic film box containing pasta.
Sometimes chemical preservatives are added to fresh pasta to prevent its spoilage.
The new method, which eschews the use of artificial chemicals, modifies the ratio of MAP gases and the combination of plastic films used in pasta packaging to better limit bacterial development.
The Italian researchers also injected a probiotic cocktail including many strains to inhibit the growth of bacteria.
They tested their innovation on trofie, a sort of short, thin, twisted pasta, and compared it to conventional packaging.
The combination of probiotics and modern packaging was discovered to extend the pasta’s shelf life by 30 days.
The study utilized cutting-edge techniques such as gene sequencing to detect microorganisms.
