Detection and enumeration of pathogenic microorganisms associated with fresh vegetables and their implication for food safety

Abstract

© 2021 Jamila T.S. and Shamsuddeen Abdullahi. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Abstract Background: Nowadays, food safety becomes an environmental and public health concern due to the increasing demand of vegetable diets observed from the last decades. This has stipulated research regarding the risks associated with consumption of food stuffs contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms. Objective: The aim of this study was to detect and enumerate pathogenic microorganisms associated with fresh vegetables and their implications for food safety among consumers. Methods: Fresh samples of vegetables including tomato, onion, carrot and spinach were collected immediately after harvest for the bacterial characterization and identification using Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology while the fungi were identified by their morphology through examination of their microscopic structures. Results: The results show higher number of Vibrio cholerae in the vegetables, a high mean score of 8.7 × 108 CFU/ g for AMB, and 5.6 × 105 for TCB in tomatoes and 3.9 × 106 CFU/g for FCB in carrot sample. There were no statistically significance difference within and between groups in the AMB, FCB and TCB using one-way ANOVA at p = 0.05 and 95% confidence interval (F = 2.065; 0.152 and 4.045 respectively). Spinach contained 495 MPN/g of Aspergillus flavus (ASPf) while onion has 518 MPN/g of Aspergillus niger (ASPn) per each 25 plates of samples. Conclusion: This study concluded that microbial loads on vegetables were above ICMSF limits for vegetables and therefore, consumers should ensure that the raw vegetables are thoroughly washed and adequately processed to prevent chances of food borne diseases.