Abstract
The microbiological safety of food has been a major concern in Bangladesh following several reports of food borne outbreaks associated with contaminated food and vegetables. To minimize the outbreak, several studies suggested that decontamination is necessary before cooking. Washing with water is the most common technique for decontamination in Bangladesh. In order to ensure food safety, the use of different food washing agents is also becoming popular day by day. For this reason, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of various sanitizers and treatment method for decontamination. In this study, several decontamination methods including washing with hot water, cold water, salt water, vinegar and commercially available food sanitizer to evaluate for their efficacy against different microorganisms. Here, salad vegetables were washed with various sanitizers and then microbiological analysis was done to reveal the bacterial and fungal load. This study revealed that most of the sanitizing methods were able to reduce microbial load minimum by 2 log CFU/g. Vinegar and hot water wash were the most effective method of decontamination compare to others with the former showing a 3 log CFU/g reduction. This can be concluded that common items like the use of vinegar and hot water were more effective than the commercial decontaminating agents available.
Highlights
Vegetables are an excellent source of nutrition and it serves as a favorite among many consumers (Nastou et al, 2012; Alam et al, 2015; Rahman et al, 2016)
Some vegetables are consumed after minimal processing in which the products are physically altered but they are still in their original state (Soriano et al, 2001; GomezLopez et al, 2008)
Vinegar exhibited the highest reduction in the case of coliform and Staphylococcus spp. growth
Summary
Vegetables are an excellent source of nutrition and it serves as a favorite among many consumers (Nastou et al, 2012; Alam et al, 2015; Rahman et al, 2016). Leafy green vegetables and other ready to eat vegetables are a potential source of pathogens with the ability to cause food-borne illnesses, especially when consumed raw (Soriano et al, 2001; Ahmed et al, 2014; Alam et al, 2015; Rahman et al, 2016; Uhlig et al, 2017). Some vegetables are consumed after minimal processing in which the products are physically altered but they are still in their original state (Soriano et al, 2001; GomezLopez et al, 2008). This includes cutting, peeling, trimming and washing (Gomez-Lopez et al, 2008). Effective decontamination is of utmost importance in order to stop the spread of pathogens in the food cycle (Gil et al, 2009; Phua et al, 2014)
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