In Nigeria, West Africa, it is common practice to eat roasted food as snacks without being mindful of the health implications from the environment where it is roasted. This research work evaluated the level of heavy metals and microbial contents in roadside roasted corn and plantain from three locations in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State. Heavy metals and microbial concentration of 18 samples were analyzed using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) and Standard Microbiological Techniques (SMT). The average concentration of heavy metals in all the samples ranged between 0.45 – 1.40mg/g, 2.45 – 4.80mg/g, 3.20 – 14.05mg/g and 9.95–18.05mg/g for copper, zinc, iron, and magnesium respectively. Furthermore, samples from heavy traffic areas had average concentration range of between 0 – 58.40mg/g and 0 – 1.95mg/g for lead and cadmium respectively. Most of the values are higher than World Health Organization permissible limits. The average microbial load of the samples ranged between 250×10−3 – 800×10−3 Cfu. Samples from locations close to refuse dumpsite had the highest microbial content. Four micro organisms isolated from the samples are Escheriachia coli, Bacillus species, Neurospora species and Aspergillus niger. These findings indicate that roadside roasted food are contaminated by the polluted environment which make them not healthy for human consumption.
The entrepreneurship development programme (EDP) was introduced into the curricula of tertiary institutions for the purpose of nurturing a new set of undergraduate students with practical skills for self-employment. This article investigates the students' viewpoints on the outcomes of EDP on entrepreneurial mindset (EM), entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial capacities (EC) after undergoing entrepreneurship education courses. The method of investigation is the quantitative research approach leveraging on the survey as the strategy for data collection. From a population of 458 students in a school, a sample of 200 undergraduate students was randomly administered structured questionnaires. Using descriptive and inferential statistics, this article found that EDP has a significant influence on students' EM, EI, and EC. The article recommends interventions such as adequate funding, capacity-building for entrepreneurship lecturers, improved curriculum development and Town-Gown collaboration for the synergy of practice and theory.
The drying kinetics of Clerodendrum Volubile leaves was investigated at different temperature of 50, 60 and 70⁰C in oven dryer. The weight loss with time was recorded and moisture ratio was computed and fitted into different eleven thin-layer drying models. The result showed that moisture ratio reduces with time for all drying temperatures. The drying rate was observed to increase with temperature peaking at 0.185, 0.117 and 0.059 g H2O/g dry solid.min at 70, 60 and 50⁰C respectively. Drying occurred in falling rate period and no constant rate period was observed. The approximation of diffusion model was observed to give the best fit model for the drying process with highest coefficient of determination (0.9985), lowest sum of square errors (0.0032), reduced chi square (0.00012) and root mean square error (0.0107) occurring at 50 ⁰C. The effective diffusivity for Marugbo drying increases with temperature from 3.65×10-12 to 1.28×10-11 m2/s. The Arrhenius equation also described the temperature dependence of diffusivity with activation energy of 57.74 kJ/mol.
Noodles are becoming an increasingly popular meal among the young and old in Nigeria and other developing countries of the world. There is therefore a need to utilize some less known crops native to the environment in the production. The noodles were produced from a blend of pigeon pea flour, carrot flour, mixed in different proportion with a constant amount of wheat flour as sample A (100% wheat) as control, sample B (60% wheat, 20% pigeon pea, 20% carrot flour) Sample C (60% wheat, 30% pigeon pea, 10% carrot flour) sample D (60% wheat, 10% pigeon pea, 30% carrot flour) were subjected to the following analysis: proximate composition, functional analysis, cooking qualities and sensory evaluation. The result showed that sample A (control) contained: carbohydrate (80.42%) protein (2.18%) crude fiber (2.0%) ash (2.4%) moisture (8.2%), water absorption capacity (0.9%), swelling capacity (1.01%) and bulk density (0.7%) in comparison with other sample result shows that sample D has the highest amount of carbohydrate (80.23%) close to that of sample A and the least amount of protein (4.27%) but slightly higher than that of sample A, it also has least amount of ash content (0.4%), crude fiber (2.6) and moisture content (9.0%) sample C has the highest amount of protein (13.13%) least amount carbohydrate (51.37%) highest amount of fat (16.6%) much higher than that of sample A highest amount of ash and also the highest amount of moisture. Sample B has the highest amount of crude fiber (2.8%) high amount of protein (11.81%) which is next to sample C high amount of fat (13.4%) moisture (11.6%) carbohydrate (57.59%) and ash (2.8%) next to sample C in value. Sample A is most acceptable of all the samples followed by sample C while Sample D is the least acceptable of the samples which is due to high proportion of carrot flour contained responsible for the colour of the overall acceptance.
Most residents use dump soil as manure to plant vegetables and Aloe Vera in their garden without knowledge of the level of heavy metal contaminated in the soil. It was this concern that prompted the determination of heavy metals in the edible part of Celosia argentea, Lycopersicum esculentum and Aloe Vera younger clone plants planted on the dump soil and the control on Yaba College of Technology Botanical garden. The plants were allowed to grow for eight weeks before harvested. The harvested samples were digested with acid and heavy metal concentrations were determined using Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometry. The concentration of heavy metal in Celosia argentea from dump soil and the control in mg/g are Cu (13.21, 0.62), Zn (29.30, 0.76), Fe (48.51, 7.82), Cd (2.27, ND), Pb (3.64, ND) Ni (1.48, ND) respectively. The concentration in the edible part of Lycopersicum esculentum are: Cu (36.53, 2.16), Zn (46.84, 12.70), Fe (64.34, 18.23), Cd (3.70, ND), Pb (5.35, ND), Ni (2.57, ND) respectively. The concentration in the Aloe Vera tissue are: Cu (19.82, 1.86), Zn (28.19, 1.15), Fe (32.74, 2.43), Cd (1.22, ND), Pb (2.62, ND), Ni (1.17, ND) respectively. The heavy metal concentrations uptake in the plants is higher than the permissible levels set by FAO/WHO. These results show that the level of heavy metal contamination in dump soil is very high and not suitable as manure because of health hazard associated with the level of heavy metal contamination.
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