Today, a huge range of alternatives of pre-prepared, refrigerated foods
with a longer shelf-life (the period during which food maintains all its
original characteristics of quality and safety) are available to
consumers. Although they have been subjected to some type of treatment
they maintain the fresh product characteristics, a goal that is achieved
through the application of light preservation techniques such as
refrigeration, moderate heating, packaging in modified atmosphere as
well as the use of antimicrobial systems. The aim of this work was to
identify new antimicrobial, biological agents with benefits to human
health, which may be used for disinfecting salads and in the food
industry. For this purpose, we used as biological material essential
oils (EO) from different plants, known to contain terpenoids and
bioactive phenolic compounds, and fermented cheese whey, mainly composed
by lactic acid and bioactive polypeptides. Our results apoint out that
fermented whey can be a viable and healthy alternative as an
antibacterial agent and a source of bioactive peptides with high
potential not only for the food industry, but also for medicine and
nutraceutics.