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Ready-to-eat (RTE) foods including vegetable salads are one of the most preferable foods sold and served in resturants in Kirkuk city-Iraq. Foodborne diseases endure a major problem in developing countries because lacking of personal hygiene and food safety measurements. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are nanomaterials are one of the crucial and fascinating nanomaterials involved in various fields including control of pathogenic bacteria like foodborne pathogens. Therefore, this study aims to synthesize AgNPs by using eco-friendly Bifidobacterium (a silver reducing agent), and studying their effects against a range of foodborne pathogenic microorganisms. The synthesis of the AgNPs was monitored using ultraviolet visible UV-Vis spectroscopy and Fourier transform spectroscopy (FTIR). The results showed that the absorption spectra of biologically-prepared AgNPs was at wave length ranging from 200-600 nm. The AgNPs have also different functional groups such as O-H, -C≡CH, C=C stretching vibration respectively. Antagonism effect of AgNPs on Staphyloccocus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, E.coli and Proteus mirabilis has been tested that isolates from (RTE) vegetable salads. Diameter of growth inhibition zone of these bacteria was determined using agar well diffusion method.

Ice cream is a popular frozen dairy product over the world, and there are many types of ice cream that differ according to additives and manufactured way, the goal of this research was to prepare skim milk dried fruits powder (banana, quince peach, apples) for ice cream production. The chemical, physical, microbiological and sensory attributes were evaluated for resultant ice cream. As the results indicated there was an increase in the total solids of resultant ice cream, especially when using banana powder because of its high carbohydrate content and low pH value of all treatments as compared to the control. As well as the specific weight and viscosity, increased in most treatments as compared to the control due to the increase in the rate of total solids. while the yield decreased in all treatments due to the increased viscosity which led to difficulty of air entering to the product. The microbial content of the resultant ice cream was decreased or close to the value of the control for all treatments except for the treatments in which the skim milk was replaced by the dried banana powder, this may be due to the fact that added fruit powder is an additional factor for increasing the number of bacteria as compared with dried skim milk powder, as well as the addition of dried fruits powder result in a slight improvement in flavor. There was an improvement in the appearance of the resultant ice cream in which banana powder was used.

Yogurt is one of the world's most widely consumed dairy products and can be produced from different types of milk. The present research aimed to compare the effects of utilizing whole raw milk from  cattle viz. cows, buffaloes, sheep, and goats in four different milk-type yogurts, T1- cow’s milk (CM), T2- buffalo’s milk (BM), T3- sheep’s milk (SM), and T4- goat’s milk (GM) on their physicochemical, texture, rheological, and sensory qualities. The physiochemical testing included estimating pH, the percentages of moisture, fat, protein, ash, and total acidity, and the sensory assessment of the yogurt. The rheological tests also included the viscosity test, spontaneous whey separation, water-holding capacity, firmness, cohesiveness, and springiness. The results showed that T2- BM yogurt and T3- SM yogurt excelled in the percentage of fat, protein, lactose, and ash, where the ratio (4.35, 8.4, 4.70, 0.8) (5.55, 7.45, 4.80, 1.1) was for each of T2- BM yogurt and T3- SM yogurt respectively. The rheological properties were the spontaneous whey separation for each of T1-CM, T2-BM, T3-SM, T4-GM yogurt were 4.1, 2.2, 2.1 and 5.3, respectively, while the water holding capacity was 55, 60, 71 and 53 and the viscosity was 7000, 8900, 6700 and 1510 respectively. The results of the texture properties were 126.2, 199.5, 176.3, and 38.9 for firmness, while the cohesiveness values were 0.41, 0.63, 0.65, and 0.4, respectively. Finally, T2-BM and T3-SM yogurt excelled in the value obtained for sensory evaluation. The importance of the present study lies in the fact that milk with a high percentage of total solids gives good-quality yogurt.

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