Displaying publications 61 - 80 of 940 in total

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  1. Yong HT, Son R
    MyJurnal
    Hepatitis A virus infection occurs globally and is causing a public health concern, primarily in developing countries due to its persistent circulation in the environment. The improved sanitary condition and increase in awareness of personal hygiene have led to the marked reduction of HAV prevalence in industrialized countries during childhood and to a shift of the infection towards adulthood. HAV is an environmentally stable, positive single stranded RNA virus that is primarily transmitted by the fecal-oral route, person to person contact or ingestion of contaminated food and drink. One of the main causes leading to HAV infection is epidemiologically linked to the consumption of raw or undercooked shellfish particularly oysters and clams. Due to their filter-feeding style, these shellfishes readily concentrate viruses from the surrounding water containing municipal sewage, and as a consequence pose a health threat to consumers. Therefore, development of detection techniques possessing the requisite sensitivity and specificity for the practical routine monitoring purposes is of great importance necessary for the protection of shellfish-consuming public. Nucleic acid based method such as reverse transcription PCR has emerged as the popular method of choice in view of its rapidity, accuracy and
    sensitivity in contrary of the time-consuming conventional cell culture and hybridization techniques. However, detection of hepatitis A virus is firstly hampered by the non-cytophatic effect of wild type HAV strain, secondly, the low concentration of viral genome present in the environmental sample which requires effective isolation and concentration of virions and lastly the labor-extensive purification and thorough removal of the abundance of the PCR inhibitors which will unfavorably reduce the efficiency of PCR detection.
  2. Nurdeng D
    MyJurnal
    In this paper, attempts will be made to study and understand the lawful and unlawful foods in the light of Islamic Medical law focus on ethical aspect that has been practiced during Islamic civilization. We will realize that lawful and unlawful foods are not, as some imagine, mere pretense, but rather constitute the divine command which protects against many diseases. In order to present such a law, the jurists of Islam needed great acuteness and power of reflection to make them understand the matters relating to lawful and unlawful foods in Islam. To attempt to follow these jurists, in their treatment, of the different school of thoughts (madhahib) would take us far beyond the limits of this research. Thus, we will rather confine ourselves to those laws which are clearly stated in the Qur’an and tradition (hadith), as well as a few of the most important issues dealt with in the different school of thoughts (madhahib).
  3. Noor Aziah, A.A., Komathi, C.A.
    MyJurnal
    There is an increasing demand for fibre rich food and food ingredients. In this study, pumpkin pulp, unripe banana pulp, unripe mango pulp and peel which are high in dietary fibre were processed into flour and substituted at 5% level for wheat flour in a composite flour crackers formulation. The control crackers comprised of 100% wheat flour. Sensory evaluation was conducted using a 9-point hedonic scale with 31 panelists evaluating the crackers based on colour, crrispiness, taste and overall acceptance. Different types of composite flour crackers were not significantly different (p≤0.05) in term of crispiness. For colour, taste and overall acceptance, the pumpkin, banana and control crackers differ significantly (p≤0.05) with the mango pulp and mango peel crackers.
  4. Phebe, D., Chew, M.K., Suraini, A.A., Lai, O.M., Janna, O.A.
    MyJurnal
    Red-fleshed pitaya fruit is a potential fruit for betacyanins extraction. However, there is lack of report on profiles and total contents of betacyanins in the peel and flesh. The objectives of this study were to determine colour, total betacyanins content and its separation in the peel and flesh of red-fleshed pitaya fruit harvested at 25, 30 and 35 days after flower anthesis (DAA) and to examine the usefulness of tristimulus colour measurement as predictors of pigment content in red-fleshed pitaya fruits. There were significant relationships between DAA and colour (L*, C* and h° values), and total betacyanins contents of peel and flesh of red-fleshed pitaya fruit. A total of three types betacyanins were separated from peel and flesh of pitaya fruit at 30 and 35 DAA while for 25 DAA, only one type of betacyanins was separated. The total concentration of betacyanins in the fruit peel of 25, 30 and 35 DAA was 0.24, 3.99 and 8.72 mg/mL, respectively. The fruit flesh contains 2.40, 7.93 and 11.70 mg/mL betacyanins at 25, 30 and 35 DAA, respectively, which was higher than peel. The tristimulus measurements can be adequately used to estimate the total betacyanins content of peel and flesh of red-fleshed pitaya fruit instead of tedious pigment extraction methods.
  5. Behjat, T., Russly, A.R., Luqman, C.A., Yus, A.Y., Nor Azowa, I.
    MyJurnal
    Several blends of cellulose derived from bast part of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) plant, with different thermoplastics, low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE), were prepared by a melt blending machine. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used as plasticizer. Biodegradability of these blends was measured using soil burial test in order to study the rates of biodegradation of these polymer blends. It was found that the cellulose/LDPE and cellulose/HDPE blends were biodegradable in a considerable rate. The bio-composites with high content of cellulose had higher degradation rate. In addition, biodegradability of the bio-composites made up using PEG was superior to those of the bio-composites fabricated without PEG, due to the improved wetting of the plasticizer in the matrix polymer. The results were also supported by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
  6. Tung Nguyen, C.T., Son, R., Raha, A.R., Lai, O.M., Clemente Michael, W.V.L.
    MyJurnal
    The ability to detect the presence of transgenes in crop-derived foods depends on the quantity and quality of DNA obtained from a product to be analyzed. The efficiency of DNA extraction protocols differs due to the nature of each food product. In this paper, we described two main DNA extraction protocols and their modifications that have been applied and evaluated for DNA extraction from raw and processed food as well as animal feed. The yield and quality for five categories of food and feed samples namely, raw soybean, raw maize, animal feed, smooth tofu and soymilk are discussed. The statistical interaction analyses showed that the cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) method was proven to be the best method to extract DNA from raw soybean, maize and animal feed samples which not only obtained high DNA yield of 32.7, 28.4 and 33.4 ng DNA/mg sample respectively, but also produced high quality DNA with the absorbance A260/A280 ratio of 1.9, 1.9 and 2.0, respectively. These DNA were suitable for PCR amplification which produced a 164 bp DNA fragment of the lectin gene from soybean, and a 277 bp DNA fragment of the zein gene from maize. In the processed food category, the Wizard isolation method was found to be the best for the extraction of DNA from smooth tofu and soymilk with the yield of 13.2 and 3.4 ng DNA/mg sample, and the quality of the DNA at the absorbance A260/A280 ratio ranged from 1.9 to 1.7. These DNA were successfully amplified using primers specific to the lectin gene of soybean.
  7. Zulkifli, Y., Alitheen, N.B., Raha, A.R., Yeap, S.K., Marlina, Son, R., et al.
    MyJurnal
    Vibrio parahaemolyticus is one of the most widely recognized pathogenic Vibrio species due to numerous outbreaks and its’ wide occurrence in marine environment. In this study, 32 isolates of V. parahaemolyticus isolated from cockles were tested for sensitivity to 16 antibiotics and the presence of plasmids. All the isolates were multi-resistance, defined as resistant to atleast three different antibiotics with multiple antibiotic resistance indexes ranging from 0.31 to 0.69, indicating the isolates originate from high risk sources of contamination where antibiotics are often used. In the plasmid profiling test, only 15 isolates (47%) harbored plasmid DNA, which ranged in size from 2.7 to 56.2 kb, separating the isolates into 14 plasmid profiles. Hence, food contaminated with antibiotic resistant V. parahaemolyticus could be a major threat to public health due to the distinct possibility that they can be a significant reservoir of genes encoding antibiotic resistance determinants that can be transferred intra or interspecies. As in many developing countries, raw food hygiene and antimicrobial resistance epidemiology is still in the infancy stage in the locality of the study and thus our data provide a current baseline profile of antimicrobial resistance and plasmid of V. parahaemolyticusfrom cockles in Padang, Indonesia.
  8. Ting, A.S.Y, DeCosta, J.L.
    MyJurnal
    Different probiotic strains are incorporated into cultured-milk drinks by respective manufacturers with the common aim of providing health benefits to the consumers. Four common cultured-milk products (brands N, S, V and Y) were evaluated for their quality of probiotic strains used, based on the susceptibility of the probiotics to various pH levels simulated to mimic the gastrointestinal system. Results showed that brands Y and V have higher initial probiotic inoculum compared to brands N and S although probiotics from brands N and S were more tolerant to pH 3. Generally, all probiotic strains preferred higher pH with highest viability of Lactobacillus spp., Bifidobacterium spp., and Streptococcus thermophilus observed at pH 8.1. Our study also discovered that among the four brands tested, brand V contained probiotic strains which are most likely to remain viable after passage through the gastrointestinal system.
  9. Tan, Y.F., Haresh, K.K., Chai, L.C., Son R.
    MyJurnal
    A study to determine the antibiotic sensitivity pattern and genotyping using RAPD-PCR was performed on 50 C. jejuni isolated from sushi retailed in different supermarkets. With less than half of the isolates susceptible to the antibiotics tested, resistant to two or more antibiotics were observed in most of the isolates. The banding patterns obtained from RAPD-PCR revealed that no predominant clone exists and the bacterial population is rather diverse. Hence, the resistance of the C. jejuni to different classes of antibiotic as well as their diverse genotypes suggests that these C. jejuni isolates were generated from different sources in the contaminated supermarkets where sushi were retailed. Our data showed that C. jejuni can be an important reservoir for resistance genes and that study with comprehensive collections of samples are urgently required to establish better measures to reduce or eliminate the risk from antibiotic resistant and pathogenic bacteria originating from minimally processed ready-to-eat food.
  10. Azizah, A.H., Wee, K.C., Azizah, O., Azizah, M.
    MyJurnal
    Effect of various cooking methods on antioxidant content and radical scavenging activity of pumpkin was evaluated. Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) was boiled and stir-fried for 2, 4 and 6 minutes respectively. Beta-carotene and lycopene were determined using HPLC and total phenolics measured using Folin-Ciocalteu method. The free radical scavenging activity of the samples was determined using 1, 1-diphenyl-2 picrylhydrazyl assay. Interestingly, result of the study showed an increase in both beta-carotene (2 to 4 times) and lycopene (17 to 40 times) content of pumpkin after cooking for 2, 4 and 6 minutes. However, the treatment resulted in 18 to 54% losses of total phenolics content of the pumpkin. Nevertheless, the free radical scavenging activity exhibited by cooked pumpkins was found to be high, in the range of 81.1% to 94.6% with IC50 of 1.41 to 1.62 mg ml-1
    .
  11. Nor-Khaizura, M.A.R., Zaiton, H, Jamilah, B., Gulam Rusul, R.A.
    MyJurnal
    Keropok lekor is an important fish product in Malaysia. The customer demands for keropok lekorhave been increasing. This study was conducted to analyze the microbiological quality of keropok lekor in every stage of its processing, namely mincing, mixing, kneading, boiling and cooling. When processing keropok lekor, the boiling of keropok lekor at 100°C for 10 min reduced the Total Plate Counts (4.38±0.47 log10 cfu/g), psychrotrophic counts (2.00 ± 0.00 log10 cfu/g), mesophilic sporeformer counts (1.26 ± 0.34 log10 cfu/g) and total coliform counts (1.71±0.51 log Most Probable Number/g) significantly (p>0.05). However, the microbial counts were found to increase significantly (p
  12. Yazdan. M,, Jamilah, B., Yaakob C.M., Sharifah, K.
    MyJurnal
    Effects of breading materials and deep-fat frying on fat uptake, moisture content and fatty acid composition of the black pomfret (Parastromateus niger) fillets. Black pomfret fillets both breaded and non-breaded were deep-fat fried in sunflower oil and palm olein. Fat uptake, moisture content and fatty acid composition in the fillets were determined. Total fat content in the fillets of both breaded and un-breaded fillets increased significantly (p
  13. Tey, Y.S., Suryani, D., Emmy, F.A., Illisriyani, I.
    MyJurnal
    Imports are the only source of food supply to Singapore. Such condition offers a very attractive proposition for agricultural oriented countries. The dependence on type of food imports is determined by consumer demand. This study intends to do an exploratory study on the current conditions of Singaporean food consumption and expenditures with implications on Malaysia as an important agricultural exporting country to Singapore. It is identified that Singaporean consumers tend to demand for high quality poultry, pork, seafood, vegetables, and fruits in future, particularly in response to income growth. At the mean time, Malaysia is seemingly rich in the production of these food commodities and commits to exports for the excess of the supplies. While facing competition from various countries, Malaysia still possesses various competitive advantages over the other countries.
  14. MyJurnal
    This paper is interested in exploring the interrelatedness of some accompanying policy changes and
    initiatives in the selected Asian countries as well as reviewing the Malaysian National Food Security Policy. Actions taken in response to the food crisis in the selected Asian countries have worked out well and produced promising outcomes from a combination of availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability aspects in food security. Malaysia weighted more on availability aspect in food security by introducing more short- and longterm policy measures for boosting paddy and rice production, particularly in Sabah and Sarawak under the National Food Security Policy. However, much of the unhappiness and disequilibrium in the local paddy and rice market were created due to irrational extensive intervention of the Miller Subsidy and Beras Nasional programmes in the nation. Many of the policy measures targeted at area expansion and productivity but it was suggested that the dominant path to achieve the targeted self-sufficiency level is through research and development at specialized and committed paddy and rice research centre. Trade oriented self-reliance approach that strategized with multiple and diversified sources of rice import was tipped to be superior of current selfsufficiency approach.
  15. Nurul, H., Alistair, T.L.J., Lim, H.W., Noryati, I.
    MyJurnal
    Five different brands of Malaysian commercial beef frankfurters were analyzed for quality characteristics. The proximate contents showed significant differences among the samples. The range of moisture content was 63.0-73.9%; the protein content was 10.63-16.43% while the fat content was 1.71-12.22%. The lightness value (L*) of the uncooked frankfurters, which was in the range of 47.02-52.28, was significantly different among the samples. The lightness of the cooked frankfurters, showed a decrease in all the samples compared to the uncooked samples. No significant differences were observed for the folding test; where all samples showed no cracks after they were folded in half. However, significant differences were observed for the texture analysis. The hardness, cohesiveness, chewiness, springiness, gumminess and shear force ranged between 4.59-10.30 kg, 0.26-0.35, 16.15-51.72 kgmm, 12.73-14.79 mm, 1.17-3.49 kg and 1.67-7.08 kg respectively. The results of the study showed that Malaysian commercial beef frankfurters were significantly different in their physicochemical properties.
  16. Akanbi, T.O., Kamaruzaman, A.L., Abu Bakar, F., Sheikh Abdul Hamid, N., Radu, S., Abdul Manap, M.Y., et al.
    MyJurnal
    The activities of lipase produced by five lipases-producing thermophilic bacteria strains (SY1, SY5, SY6, SY7 and SY9) isolated from Selayang Hot Spring in the western part of Peninsular Malaysia were analyzed and compared. SY7 and SY9 had considerably higher lipolytic activities than those of SY1, SY5 and SY6. Thermostabilities of lipase produced by all strains were determined after heating at 80°C for 30 minutes. Strain SY7 retained the highest lipolytic activity of 77%, while others had infinitesimally low thermostability (retaining less than 34% of their original activity) at the same temperature and time. SY7 was chosen for further characterization because it showed exceptionally high lipase activity and thermostability. It was identified as belonging to Bacillus species by the conventional Gram-staining technique, Biochemical tests and Biolog Microstation system. By using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, strain SY7 generated the same expected PCR product with molecular weight of 1500 base pair. It displayed 98% sequence similarity to Bacillus cereus strain J-1 16S rRNA gene partial sequence with accession number: AY305275 and has been deposited in the database of Genbank.
  17. Kong, K.W., Emmy, H.K.I., Azizah, O., Amin, I., Tan, C.P.
    MyJurnal
    Lycopene and total phenolics of pink guava puree industry by-products (refiner, siever and decanter)
    were evaluated after steam blanching at selected temperatures and times. Lycopene content was in the order of decanter > siever > refiner (7.3, 6.3 and 1.5 mg/100 g, respectively), and the content of total phenolics was in the order of refiner > siever > decanter (4434.1, 2881.3 and 1529.3 mg GAE/100 g, respectively). Regression coefficients for temperatures (x1) and times (x2) from multiple linear regression models of siever and decanter showed significant (p
  18. Babji, A.S., Fatimah, S., Abolhassani, Y, Ghassem, M.
    MyJurnal
    Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) is the most widely used method for determining protein quality. The studies involved a few category of products as raw materials namely poultry products, beef burger products, fish and fish products, soy products and palm kernel cake in animal diet preparation were compiled to compare the data. Data from the proximate analysis showed that protein content in soy protein isolate (SPI) was the highest (95.00%) followed by meat such as mackerel fish (89.09%) and beef (88.60%). Results from feed consumption and total protein consumed showed that the rats fed with mechanically deboned poultry meat (MDPM) products (excluding broiler back) consumed more feed, ranging from 469.2g to 422.3g during the study while the lowest total feed consumed (157.7g) was recorded in the rat fed a diet of fermented palm kernel cake (fPKC). The total protein consumed by rat for diets of fish and fish products such as canned sardine was 62.36g, mackerel 61.76g and anchovy at 58.91g, followed by MDPM products. Tempeh (14.72g) and fPKC diet (16.3g) were among the lowest total protein consumed by the rats. Growth and PER data for rats fed a diet of canned sardine, anchovy and mackerel, as well as mechanically deboned turkey meat (MDTM) and mechanically deboned chicken meat (MDCM) had higher mean body weight (154.80g, 145.20g, 144.81g, 148.7g and 142.5g respectively) compared to rats fed with plant protein diet such as SPI, tempeh and PKC (34.79g, 16.34g and 16.60g respectively) whereas rats fed diets containing fPKC had a mean body weight loss of 24.4g. MDPM showed higher PER value (ranging from 3.01 to 3.34) compared to hamburger group, pure beef and fish group. Tempeh and SPI had lower PER of 1.02 and 1.52 respectively while the lowest PER of 0.50 and -1.50 were shown in PKC and fPKC. The highest digestibility was shown in mackerel (96.99%), followed by canned sardine (96.88%), tempeh (91.41%), meat (90.79%) and pure beef burger (90.04%) while digestibility of PKC and fPKC were much lower (45.70% and 22.60%). Lipid profile of rats fed with palm based fat beef burger showed that palm fat(PF) and red PF did not affect the total cholestrol concentration but resulted in higher high density lipoprotein (HDL)- cholesterol concentration in their blood serum. In summary, the utilization of PF and red PF in beef burger increased the HDL-cholesterol and has no effect on the concentration of total cholesterol in rat blood serum.
  19. MyJurnal
    The aims of this research were to investigate the present beverage choice preference of school
    children and to examine the most preferred type of milk that is available in the market. As well as to determine the effect of personal and environmental factors on children’s intention to consume milk and its comparison between rural and urban area of Selangor. A total of 389 of 5th grade primary school children were selected in this study. This research was supported by social cognitive theory. Multiple linear regression, Pearson productmoment correlation, and cross-tabulation were used for forecasting the factors affecting to consumption of milk. It was found that the preferred beverages of children were: Mineral water, Milo, fruit juice, milk, yoghurt, Ribena, tea and soft drinks and it was the same amongst children in urban and rural areas. Among different types of milk, children preferred flavored milk rather than plain milk. Based on the findings, personal factors were more effective than environmental factors. To increase milk intake among children, marketers need to focus and strengthen the acceptability of milk and increase consumption by altering perception of milk advertisements. This article also profiled the children who are likely to drink milk based on personal and environmental factors in different areas.
  20. MyJurnal
    Although the Halal concept has not been a major element among non-Muslim consumers living in an Islamic country, whether the non-Muslim consumers are aware of the underlying advantages that come with Halal food products or their viewpoints arising from their religious belief, are some intriguing questions that need to be answered. Thus the objective of the study explore the underlying determinants that are likely to influence non-Muslim consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards Halal concept and Halal food products in Malaysia in lieu of new paradigm in emerging global issues on sustainability, environmental, food safety and animal welfare. A survey was conducted in the Klang Valley where 400 non-Muslim respondents were interviewed via structured questionnaires to gather information on their awareness and attitude towards Halal food products in the Malaysian food market. Descriptive statistic was used to identify the socio-economic/ demographic characteristics and attitudes of the respondents toward the Halal food principles. The logit model
    was used to determine the extent to which selected socio-economic/demographic characteristics influenced
    the respondents’ attitude and understanding on Halal principles and Halal food products. The results of this
    study suggest that non-Muslim consumers are aware of the existence of Halal food, Halal principles and the
    advantages of Halal way in slaughtering the animals. This can be shown by their significant awareness that
    Halal is not only the way Muslim slaughter their animals but also relates to environmental, sustainability,
    animal welfare and food safety. In general, various socio-economic/demographic factors such as education
    level, older generation, those who are more religious and the urban dweller seem to more likely to be aware of the advantages of Halal principles.
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