Comparison of Pulsifiertm and Stomachertm to Detach Microorganisms From Lean Meat Tissues¹

A new sample processor, the Pulsifier TM was evaluated for detaching bacteria from lean meat tissue (LMT) and compared with stomacher. In a comparative study on 50 samples of LMT, Total Aerobic Counts (TAC) and coliforms from pulsified samples were not statistically different from stomached samples (R 2 = 0.971; y = 1.0274x −0.1694 and R 2 = 0.959; y = 1.0073 ×+ 0.188, respectively). Even though the detaching capacity of microorganisms from LMT was similar between Pulsifier and Stomacher, pulsified suspensions always contained much less meat particles than stomached samples. In the case of stomached samples, many meat particles were present to interfere with even regular pour plating. The superior quality of microbial suspensions from the Pulsifier has implications for general analysis as well as techniques such as ATP bioluminescence, DNA, or enzymatic assay, which may be interfered by tissue extracts.