Canadian researchers say cooking oil applied to stainless-steel cookware will repel harmful bacteria.
In a study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the engineering researchers say the surfaces of the machines get minute scratches and grooves that are ideal hiding places for bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli.
Prof. Ben Hatton, Dr. Dalal Asker and Dr. Tarek Awad of the University of Toronto say their research indicates a thin layer of cooking oil fills in the microscopic scrapes, forming an effective barrier to bacterial attachment.
They say this minimizes the risk of cross-contamination, which can lead to foodborne disease.
Hatton says they found their system reduced bacterial levels inside the machines they tested between 1,000 and 100,000 times.
The researchers collaborated on the project with Agri-Neo, an Ontario seed processing company looking for a solution to bacterial contamination.
