Bacteriological status of commonly consumed foods and vegetables from food vendors in a market in Enugu, Nigeria.

Abstract

Safety of food is a basic requirement of food quality. A total of 25 different street foods and vegetable samples randomly purchased from five different vendors in Ogbete main market Enugu, Nigeria, were brought in ice to the laboratory for bacteriological analysis. Pour plate technique was used. Serial dilutions of the samples were used after one ml from each tube was pipetted into a nutrient agar plates and incubated for 24 hours at 37oC. The plates were examined for growth. Sub-culturing of colonies from the growth was done on bacteriological agar. All screened samples had levels of bacterial growth ranging from 1.0 X 105 to 3.0 X 106 cfu/ml. Ninety percent of the samples had bacterial counts above the acceptable limits (104 cfu/ml). Stapylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Vibrio spp, Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli and Shigella spp. were isolated and identified from the food samples. Two pathogenic micro organisms were isolated from each of Jollof rice and ugu vegetable. One each was isolated from egusi soup and the other vegetables. This study revealed that street foods are potential vehicles for transmitting food borne illnesses in Nigeria.