On Enterococci in Marketed Animal Foods (Meat, Fish, Milk and their Products)

Abstract

The authers investigated on the contamination of enterococci in 1700 marketed meat, fish, milk and their products from food hygienic point review and these investigations were performed between 1951 and 1960, and the results were summerized as follows.The contamination rate of enterococci in samples were considerably high, especially remarkable in ground meat, fresh fish and row milk. The contamination degree by enterococci was between 104 and 105 per g. When the number of enterococci was compared with total viable counts and coli-group counts in the same samples, it was found that enterococci was from one over hundred to one over thousand of total viable counts and almost equal to coli-group.In classfing of enterococci strains, 85% of isolated belonged to Str. faecalis, 4.92% to Str. liquefaciens, 1.14% to Str. zymogenes, 1.85% to Str. durans, 6.44% to Unidentified enterococci. 9 out of strains of 218 enterococci isolated from samples were toxic to mice and 6 were enterotoxin producing strains. In the test of heatresistability on 163 strains isolated, whole strains could not survived at 70°C for 30 minutes but 7.8% of strains survived at 65°C for 60 minutes and 48% of stranis survived at 65°C for 30 minutes.