Abstract:The effects of electron beam irradiation on the bactericidal effect, lipase activity, lipid oxidation performance and nutritional quality of pine pollen were studied. The changes of color, peroxide value and volatile constituents of wall-breaking pine pollen during accelerated oxidation were also analyzed. The results showed that electron beam irradiation could significantly reduce the microbial content of pine pollen, and the sterilization effect with a dose-dependent manner, the D10 values of total bacterial count, mold-yeast and coliform were 2.20, 1.95 and 1.84 kGy, respectively. The lipase activity, carotenoid and free fatty acid contents of pine pollen were decreased significantly with the increase of irradiation dose, while the peroxide value was still at a low level. At the irradiation dose of 8.0 kGy, the inactivation rate of lipase was 53.52%, the retention rate of carotenoid was 60.81%, the content of free fatty acid was 1.38 mg/kg, and the peroxide value was 0.46 meq/kg, respectively. In addition, the irradiation of 8.0 kGy dose had no significant effect on the basic nutritional components, amino acid content, and color of pine pollen and effectively prevent the increase of peroxide value, hexanal and caproic acid contents in the process of accelerated oxidation. These results indicated that electron beam irradiation of 8 kGy dose could effectively kill the microbes, inhibit lipid oxidation, keep the original nutritional quality and improve the storage stability of pine pollen.
