No abstract

Food safety issue is not new in Malaysia as problems such as unsafe food handling, doubtful food preparation, food poisoning outbreaks in schools and education institutions and spreading of infectious food borne illness has been discussed by the public more often than before. The purpose of this study is to examine the food safety knowledge and attitude of culinary based students from four (4) public and private higher learning institutions (IPT) with prior knowledge on food safety, hygiene and sanitation. The study involved a total of 114 group administered questionnaires that were usable and coded comprising of 34-questions assessing their knowledge and attitude on food safety. The research finds that higher learning institution's students who have prior knowledge on food safety partly do not represent their attitude towards food safety although their correlations recorded moderate positive relationships especially on personal hygiene practice (p=0.07, r=0.42) and keeping food at safe temperature (p=0.17, r=0.36). On the other hand, their knowledge in avoiding cross contamination (p=0.00, r=0.50) and avoiding food from unsafe sources (p=0.02, r=0.36) were positive and significant in influencing their food safety attitude. There were no significant differences among food safety knowledge and attitude based on the students' demographic profiles. The results urged for more improvement in both knowledge and practice of food safety among students in public and private higher learning institutions towards recommended food safety standards and positive attitude in food preparation process.

There have been a number of studies conducted in order to compare the efficiencies of recovery rates, utilizing different protocols, for the isolation of L. monocytogenes. However, the severity of multiple cell injury has not been included in these studies. In the current study, L. monocytogenes ATCC 19112 was injured by exposure to extreme temperatures (60 o C and-20 o C) for a one-step injury, and for a two-step injury the cells were transferred directly from a heat treatment to frozen state to induce a severe cell injury (up to 100% injury). The injured cells were then subjected to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the ISO-11290, and the modified United States Department of Agriculture (mUSDA) protocols, and plated on TSAyeast (0.6% yeast), PALCAM agar, and CHROMAgar Listeria for 24 h or 48 h. The evaluation of the total recovery of injured cells was also calculated based on the costs involved in the preparation of media for each protocol. Results indicate that the mUSDA method is best able to aid the recovery of heat-injured, freeze-injured, and heat-freeze-injured cells and was shown to be the most cost effective for heat-freeze-injured cells.

Listeria monocytogenes subtyping is important in food processing environment or in epidemiological studies in order to identify the contamination sources and spreading routes, and to investigate the food-borne outbreaks. This study employs the combination of serotyping and random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD) analysis methods to characterize the isolated L. monocytogenes strains in food samples from local markets. Listeria antisera kit was used in serotyping which grouped L. monocytogenes isolates based on the expression of somatic and flagellar antigens. The L. monocytogenes serovars were further classified into RAPD types based on polymorphic banding patterns generated by using 10 random RAPD primers. The 23 isolated strains were divided into four different serotypes consisting 4b (43.5%), 1/2b (34.8%), 4d (8.70%) and 4e (4.35%) with two untypable isolates (8.70%). 11 banding patterns were obtained from each selected primer, OPA10 and OPA14 with DNA fragments ranging from approximately 0.15 kb to 1.1 kb. The constructed dendograms showed similarity percentage of 4% to 100% for OPA10, 12% to 100% for OPA14 and 4% to 100% for combination of primers. At a comparative genetic similarity of more than 90%, 21 distinguish RAPD profiles were obtained. The discriminatory of RAPD analysis method was proven as it could distinguish the isolates from the same serovar. However, between the two primers used, OPA14 provide better discriminatory results than OPA10 although it failed to type one isolate. These findings suggest that the application of RAPD analysis could be a useful tool in characterization of L. monocytogenes isolated from foods as it may provide important information on crosscontamination potential sites. Thus, the microbial monitoring should be applied and continuously performed in order to control listeriosis infection. The data may be useful for the food producers or epidemiological and public health studies of Listeria spp.

This paper aims to investigate the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of RCO usage of restaurant operators in the capital city of Shah Alam. In addition, to investigate the quality of cooking oil used by these restaurant operators, samples of cooking oil are collected and tested using established cooking oil quality parameters. Cooking oil quality can be measured by Total Polar Compound (TPC) and Acid Value (AV) tests. Testo 270 is a tool that helps to determine the concentration level of degraded products in cooking oil and can be used to evaluate the TPC level in cooking oil. 3M Long range shortening monitor (LRSM) is a test strip that measures the free fatty acid (FFA) levels in cooking oil. These two rapid test kits enable cooking oil quality to be measured quickly by analysing their chemical parameters. High TPC and FFA value indicate that the quality of cooking oil is harmful for consumption. This article aims to highlight the level of restaurant operators' KAP towards usage of RCO, and KAP association with the quality of cooking oil used.