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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Food. Sci. Technol.
Sec. Food Safety and Quality Control
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frfst.2025.1556103
Quality Attributes of Fresh-Cut, Bagged Romaine Lettuce Exposed to Specific Electron Beam Doses
Provisionally accepted
Kendall A Howie 
Suresh D Pillai *- Texas A and M University, College Station, United States
This study evaluated the effects of specific electron beam (eBeam) doses between 1 kGy and 4 kGy on the quality attributes of fresh-cut romaine lettuce that focused on color, texture, moisture retention, and odor during a 14-day storage period at 7°C. Electron beam dose-mapping treatments confirmed uniform dose delivery, ensuring reliability in experimental outcomes.Colorimetric analyses showed that lower doses (1 kGy to 2 kGy) preserved lightness (L*), yellowness (b*), and minimized green color loss (a*) while higher doses (3 kGy to 4 kGy) resulted in significant darkening, yellowing, and degreening over time. Subjective evaluations revealed that 1 kGy and 2 kGy treatments-maintained color stability, texture, and moisture, with minimal off-odor development, outperforming both untreated and higher-dose samples. In contrast, lettuce samples exposed to higher doses (3 kGy and 4 kGy) exhibited pronounced browning, wilting, moisture losses, and off-odors by day 14, indicative of dose-related tissue damage and subsequent spoilage mechanisms. These findings demonstrate the critical importance of dose optimization in preserving the quality of fresh-cut produce, with low-dose treatments effectively extending shelf life. The upper dose of 2 kGy can result in significant improvements in the microbiological safety of lettuce without compromising lettuce quality.
Keywords: quality, Lettuce, electron beam, Dose, color &, Color
Received: 06 Jan 2025; Accepted: 14 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Howie and Pillai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Suresh D Pillai, Texas A and M University, College Station, United States
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