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Most food poisoning outbreaks are caused by consumers' poor knowledge, attitude, perception, and behaviour in relation to food safety. A valid and reliable tool is thus needed to measure these factors among the consumers. A total of 79 respondents participated in this pilot survey using convenient sampling, and participants self-completed the questionnaire given. Item analysis was conducted to determine the difficulty and discrimination indices of 40 items involved in knowledge construction. Construct validity and reliability were performed on 33 items which measured attitudes, preventive practices, and perceptions. Item analysis showed that more than 80% of respondents answered 19 items correctly. The discrimination index revealed that 16 items scored below 0.20. The Average Variance Extraction for all latent constructs, namely attitude, practice, and perception met acceptable threshold values of 0.527, 0.517, and 0.535, respectively. The Fornell-Larcker criterion suggested that three latent constructs were acceptable for discriminant validity. The internal consistency and reliability for all scaled items in each construct were good, with Cronbach's alpha values of more than 0.7 (0.820, 0.809, and 0.799 for attitude, practice, and perception, respectively). In conclusion, the present work indicated that the knowledge, attitude, practice, and perception (KAP2) questionnaire used could be a valid and reliable measure to evaluate consumer's knowledge, attitude, preventive practice, and perception on food poisoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cockle (Anadara granosa) meat wash water precipitate was hydrolyzed using bromelain. Experiments were carried out to determine optimum conditions for temperature, enzyme concentration and hydrolysis time using response surface methodology (RSM) based on a central composite rotatable design (CCRD) to obtain the highest value of nitrogen content (NC) and degree of hydrolysis (DH). Results revealed that the optimum conditions for temperature, enzyme concentration and hydrolysis time were 33.7°C, 1.45% (E/S) and 28.42 hrs, respectively. At the optimum condition, hydrolysis of cockle meat wash water precipitate using bromelain resulted in a NC of 0.6% and DH of 48%. The NC and DH were significantly influenced by temperature, enzyme concentration and hydrolysis time. When the bromelain concentration, hydrolysis time and temperature were increased, the values of NC and DH also increased. The hydrolysate produced contained flavor compounds found in clam and oyster which were 3-methylbutanol and 1-pentanol. The compound 3-MCPD was not found in the hydrolysate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was carried out to observe the fermentation process for noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) extract by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The experiment was based on a central composite rotatable design (CCRD) employing 5 center points with augmented axial and factorial points resulting in 30 runs. The M. citrifolia extract was fermented with different combination of substrate concentration (40, 50, 60, 70 and 80%) (w/v), inoculum size (0, 1.5, 3, 4.5 and 6%) (v/v), temperature (30, 33.5, 37,40.5 and44°C) and fermentation time (0,1.5, 3,4.5 and6 days). Five physico-chemical characteristics which include pH, titratable acidity, turbidity, total soluble solids and total polyphenol content were measured. Results showed that all the responses could be well represented using statistical models. For pH, only fermentation time was found to be not significant, while for titratable acidity and total polyphenol content, the effects of substrate concentration and fermentation time were significant. The effects of inoculum size and temperature level were found to be significant for turbidity. For total soluble solids, only the effect of substrate concentration and inoculum size were found to be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum) peel is a potential source of antioxidant. As rambutan is a seasonal fruit, a proper heat treatment prior to storage is necessary. Thus, this study was conducted to determine the effect of water and steam blanchings on browning enzymes and antioxidant activities of rambutan peel extracts. Rambutan from the variety of 'Anak Sekolah' were peeled and the peel was blanched in boiling water for 0, 2.5, 5 min and by autoclaving for 0, 5, 10 and 15 min. The residual peroxidase (POD) and polyphenoloxidase (PPO) activities, antioxidant activity (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging activity), total polyphenol content (TPC) and peel extract colour were determined. The results showed that both water and steam blanchings significantly reduced (p < 0.05) POD and PPO activities. The results also indicated that the increase in the blanching period did not significantly reduce the enzyme activities further. In terms of antioxidant activity, the thermal pretreatment caused no significant difference in the contents of phenolic compounds, as well as the antioxidant capacity of the final product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chicken fat is a potential bioresource that can be developed into a commercial product. In this study, chicken fat, which is rich in unsaturated fatty acids, including oleic acid (C18:1) and linoleic acid (C18:2), was enzymatically interesterified with corn oil to produce a soft spread. Two interesterified products, sample 16 (4% enzyme, 4:1 mole ratio of chicken fat to corn oil, 50°C and 42 h of the interesterification process) and sample 17 (4% enzyme, 2:1 mole ratio of chicken fat to corn oil, 30°C and 42 h of the interesterification process), were selected based on the highest SFC at 30oC which were close to SFC values of commercial product. A morphological study showed that the final products had smaller and less dense fat particles, which explained the lower melting temperatures and solid fat content (3.2 and 3.5% for samples 16 and 17, respectively, at 20°C) compared to the commercial products (9.7, 6.8 and 7.7% for products A, B and C, respectively, at 20°C). However, both sample 16 and 17 had similar thermal properties to a vegetable-oil-based commercial product, with melting enthalpies (ΔH) of 58.45 J/g and 71.40 J/g, and were fully melted at 31.40°C and 35.41°C, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of soursop (Annona muricata L.) extract on Sprague-Dawley rats subjected to in vivo 28-day repeated doses. The extract was given to the study group via force feeding. In the 28-day study, Annona muricata L. extract was dosed at 0 (CD, control dose), 0.5 (LD, low dose), 1.0 (MD, medium dose), 2.0g/kg (HD, high dose) body weight. For control group, distilled water was given to the animals. Administration of Annona muricata L. extract did not cause negative effect in blood hematology even though a statistically significant (p<0.05) increase in platelet level was noted. Result from serum biochemical test showed that the consumption of the extract did not result in liver and kidney failure. The total antioxidant status (TAS) increased significantly as the dosages increased. However the incresase were within the normal laboratory limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]