Assessment of the Sanitary Quality of Ready to Eat Sesame, a Low Moisture Streets Food Form Burkina Faso

Abstract

Background: Microbial contamination of edible low moisture foods poses a significant public health risk for human. In this study, the microbial quality of sweet dehulled sesame, salted dehulled sesame and the raw sesame, sold under ambient conditions were examined. The samples were collected in the cities of Burkina Faso. The first type is sweet dehulled sesame (n1 = 25); the second type is salted dehulled sesame (n2 = 25) and the third type raw sesame (n3 = 25). Assessment of the microbial quality was based on the total aerobic mesophilic bacteria, the thermotolerant coliforms, the yeasts and moulds, the E. coli, and the Salmonella spp using ISO methods. Results: The results showed the presence of microorganisms varying from ˂1.0 to 1.72x105 CFU g−1 for thermotolerant coliforms, from ˂1.0 to 6,12x106 CFU g−1 for the total mesophilic aerobic flora and from ˂1.0 to 8.10x105 CFU g−1 for yeasts and moulds. The higher contaminations rates were mostly observed in raw sesame samples. No E coli or Salmonella pathogens were detected. Based on international standards of dehydrated foods, 50.67% of the ready to eat sesames are satisficing while 17.33% are acceptable and 32% are not satisficing. Conclusion: Attention should be emphasized on the processing practices, especially in crowded places where sesames are mostly sold. The high numbers of all microbial groups in these sesame samples suggested that the production of ready to eat sesame should be improved by better hygiene. This study highlights also that ready to eat sesame might harbor a wide range of microorganisms when processes are weak of hygiene.