Microbial counts of beef from abattoir’s in Nigeria, Osun State as a case study
Keywords:
Abattoirs,, microbes,, boiled meat,, fried meat and fresh meat.Abstract
Meat of live animals are microbial sterile but its journey through abattoir’s reduces its quality, with micro-organisms. Six abattoirs, Iwo, Ilesha, Gbongan, Okuku, Ejigbo and Osogbo in Osun State, were visited.
Samples were collected from slaughtered meat and slabs, butchers knives, cloths and tables at five occasions, under microscopic environment, taken to laboratory for microbial counts evaluations. Fresh, boiled (1000C for 20minutes) and fried samples (1200C for 20 minutes) were also evaluated for microbial loads and proximate composition, in a completely randomized design. Results showed that butcher cloths had highest (p<0.05) contaminated microbes (1.82-6.53 x104 CFU/g) followed by butchers tables (0.85-3.50 x 104 CFU/g) followed by slaughter meat (1.83-2.22 x 104 CFU/g) while least were recorded for slabs (1.46 -1.99 x104 CFU/g). Fresh and processed samples, fresh meat had highest contaminated microbes level of (1.83-2.22 x104 CFU/g) (p<0.05) while the least significant values were obtained in fried samples (0.71-1.52 x 104 CFU/g).
Proximate evaluation showed that nutrients (protein, ash and ether extract content) increases in this order fresh>boiled>fried (p<0.05) while moisture increases in reversed form fried>boiled>fresh respectively for all values evaluated.
Processes involved in slaughtering of animals in abattoirs, contaminate meat to the extent that frying methods couldn’t eradicate microbes.
