Microbiology

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Microbiological quality of some selected spices (Thymus vulgaris, Murraya koenigi and Piper nigrium)
(Nigerian Society of Microbiology, 2009) Awe, S.; Sani, A.; Ojo, F. T.
Some spices retailed in Oyo market were investigated for their microbiological quality, in terms of total bacterial count, coliform count, fungal count, types of bacterial and fungal species present. Their physicochemical parameters, pH and moisture content were also assessed. The spices were found to have pH ranging from 5.0 to 7.1, while the moisture content ranged from 4.4 to 4.8%. The bacterial counts ranged from 0.0 to 4.30 xlO5 cfu/g; coliform count ranged between 0 and 26 x 104 cfu/g; while the fungal ranged between 5.1 x 104 and 7.0 x 104 cfu/g. Six bacterial species namely Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Lactobacillus sp, Micrococcus luteus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, and four fungal species; Penicillum chrysogenum, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus were isolated. Their distribution pattern showed that Lactobacillus sp. and Aspergillus niger were common to all the samples. There was no statistically significant difference between the pH, moisture contents and mean fungal counts of the samples (p>0.05) while the mean bacterial counts and coliform counts were significantly different among the samples. The possible sources of the organisms were highlighted and associated health risk discussed.