Scientific Findings: The Amazing use of Essential Oils and their Related Terpenes as Natural Preservatives to Improve the ShelfLife of Food

Abstract

There is growing legislation against the use of synthetic and chemical food preservatives as antimicrobials. Therefore, it is essential to discover and develop alternative safe and natural techniques for controlling food-borne and spoilage bacteria, fungi and yeast in and through food. Worldwide studies carried out on essential oils (EOs) have motivated scientists to focus their interest toward the research of botanical antimicrobials. It is obvious that the application of EOs and their derivatives has been widely described and used against a wide range of food-borne and food spoilage microorganisms. Research on the use of EOs as natural preservatives in the food industry is still in the “childhood” step with more exciting and promising discoveries to come. Still, the findings are extremely encouraging and suggest that EOs or their characteristic chemical compounds (thymol, carvacrol, linalool, citral, citronellol, geraniol, eucalyptol, geranyl acetate and limonene) can replace chemical food preservatives and create all-natural, safe, and tasty food products with a long shelf-life.