Quantification of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in organic vegetables and chickens.
The organic foods’ market is becoming one of the rapidly growing sections in agricultural economies in the world. During the last two decades, food-borne outbreaks associated with fresh produce have rapidly increased. E. coli O57:H7, the caustic agent of acute hemorrhagic diarrhea and abdominal...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia
2013
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| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/30512/1/30512.pdf http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/30512/7/Quantification%20of%20Escherichia%20coli%20O157.pdf |
| Summary: | The organic foods’ market is becoming one of the rapidly growing sections in agricultural
economies in the world. During the last two decades, food-borne outbreaks associated with
fresh produce have rapidly increased.
E. coli
O57:H7, the caustic agent of acute hemorrhagic
diarrhea and abdominal cramps, is mainly associated with meat and poultry product outbreaks
but frequent outbreaks linked to the consumption of vegetables have been reported. The aim of
this study was to investigate prevalence of
E. coli
O157:H7 in some organic foods. A total of 230
organic food samples including four-winged bean, tomato, white radish, red cabbage, chinese
cabbage, lettuce, cucumber and chicken form retailed groceries and supermarkets in Malaysia
were investigated. Low prevalence of
E. coli
O157:H7 was detected in organic vegetables and
chickens. The estimated quantity of
E. coli
O157:H7 in all samples ranged from <3 to >2400
MPN/g. The overall MPN/g estimate of
E. coli
O157:H7 in the samples from organic groceries
was higher than supermarket with the maximum of >2400 MPN/g. Most of the samples from
supermarket showed a minimum of <3 MPN/g. The specific target genes produced amplicons
of 259 bp and 625 bp after PCR amplification and
E. coli
O157:H7 was detected in 5.2% of
total organic samples. Prevalence of
E. coli
O157: H7 in organic foods from groceries (8.8%)
was particularly higher than supermarkets (1.0%). The highest prevalence of
E. coli
O157:H7
was observed in organic chickens (40%) purchased from groceries followed by four-winged
bean (10%) and white radish (3.3%). |
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