Biogenic amine reduction by food additives in , a Korean fermented soybean paste, fermented with tyramine-producing heterogeneous bacterial species.

This study was conducted to mitigate the food safety risks related to biogenic amine (BA) by reducing the BA content in using applicable food additives. In - experiments, of the additives tested, tartaric acid (TA), potassium sorbate (PS), and sodium benzoate (SB) considerably inhibited tyramine production of strains of spp. and while less affecting their growth. In addition to these three additives, two additives, glycine (GL) and nicotinic acid (NA), reported to have significant inhibitory effects in previous studies, were applied to the fermentation with prolific tyramine-producing strains of and . The content of tyramine in the samples treated with TA, PS, SB, GL, and NA was significantly reduced by 27.5%, 50.7%, 51.4%, 76.1%, and 100.0%, respectively, compared to the control sample. Additionally, the content of polyamines (putrescine, cadaverine, spermidine, and spermine) in the GL-treated sample was reduced by 42.6%-62.4%. The mode of action could be attributed to inhibiting the bacterial decarboxylase activity and/or growth. Consequently, excluding NA that interfered with fermentation, GL was the most outstanding additive with an inhibitory effect on tyramine formation in food, followed by SB and PS, all of which showed a more than 50% reduction. Therefore, the use of appropriate additives could be one of the promising strategies to avoid the food safety issues implicated in BAs in .