Abstract
Edible bird’s nest (EBN) is recognized as a nourishing food among Chinese people. The efficacy of EBN was stated in the records of traditional Chinese medicine and its activities have been reported in many researches. Malaysia is the second largest exporter of EBNs in the world, after Indonesia. For many years, EBN trade to China was not regulated until August 2011, when a safety alert was triggered for the consumption of EBNs. China banned the import of EBNs from Malaysia and Indonesia due to high level of nitrite. Since then, the Malaysia government has formulated Malaysia Standards for swiftlet farming (MS 2273:2012), edible bird’s nest processing plant design and management (MS 2333:2010), and edible bird’s nest product quality (MS 2334:2011) to enable the industry to meet the specified standards for the export to China. On the other hand, Indonesia's EBN industry formulated a standard operating procedure (SOP) for exportation to China. Both countries can export EBNs to China by complying with the standards and SOPs. EBN contaminants may include but not limited to nitrite, heavy metals, excessive minerals, fungi, bacteria, and mites. The possible source of contaminants may come from the swiftlet farms and the swiftlets or introduced during processing, storage, and transportation of EBNs, or adulterants. Swiftlet house design and management, and EBN processing affect the bird’s nest color. Degradation of its optical quality has an impact on the selling price, and color changes are tied together with nitrite level. In this review, the current and future prospects of EBNs in Malaysia and Indonesia in terms of their quality, and the research on the contaminants and their effects on EBN color changes are discussed.
Highlights
Bird’s nest is built by swiftlet using secretions from its salivary glands under the tongue
Mucin glycoproteins are secreted in saliva from a pair of unique sublingual glands beneath the swiftlet’s tongue, repeatedly interwoven together to build the half bowl shaped, palm size, white nests (Shim and Lee, 2018)
Edible bird’s nest (EBN) is nutritious as listed above, but what about the safe consumption of EBN? This review summarizes previous studies on potential residual contaminants in EBNs, including 1) issues and regulations regarding EBN; 1) nitrite and nitrate content in EBN; 2) the color of EBN; 3) bacteria, fungi and mites in EBN; 4) allergens in EBN; and 5) heavy metals and excessive mineral contents in EBNs and including different stages of EBN, i.e., Raw uncleaned (RUC) EBN, raw cleaned edible bird’s nests (RC EBN) and EBN after treatment
Summary
Bird’s nest is built by swiftlet using secretions from its salivary glands under the tongue. Nesting can be used as a shelter for canaries to breed and roost. There are more than 24 species of insectivorous, echolocation swiftlets all over the world (Hamzah et al, 2013). Only two species of swiftlets are responsible for producing commercially valuable edible bird’s nest (EBN) currently. They are species of the Apodidae, Collocalia, i.e., Aerodramus fuciphagus (white nest swiftlets) and
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