Incidence of Staphylococcus aureus and associated risk factors in Nham,a Thai fermented pork product

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most prevalent bacterial pathogens causing food-borne disease worldwide. Staphylococcal food poisoning is caused by ingestion of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) pre-formed in the implicated food. In this study, the incidences of S. aureus and classical SEs (SEA-SEE) contamination in ‘Nham’, a traditional Thai fermented pork product, were determined. Among 155 Nham samples tested, as high as 39.35% of the samples were positive for S. aureus (2–3500 MPN/g), but none were positive for the SEs. The risk factors for S. aureus contamination were highly correlated with the manufacturer and the pH of the product. A predictive model determined the probability of the presence of S. aureus to be ≤0.24 at the pH ≤ 4.6. During the fermentation process, the number of S. aureus slightly increased in the first day and decreased afterward. S. aureus counts continued to decrease when Nham was stored refrigerated. The negative result for enterotoxins and low counts of S. aureus in Nham surveyed in this study, and reduction of the pathogen counts during fermentation and storage suggested that there is very low risk of staphylococcal food poisoning from consuming properly fermented Nham.     

Comparison between isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) and cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) for analysing the carbon isotope ratio and detection of adulteration in coconut water

This study investigated the carbon isotope ratio (¹³C/¹²C, δ¹³C in unit of parts per thousand or per mill, ‰) of different coconut water samples using elemental analysis isotope ratio mass spectrometry (EA-IRMS) and combustion module cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CM-CRDS). Natural coconut water from young coconuts from 12 provinces in Thailand (n = 94), adulterated coconut water containing three sweeteners (sucrose, glucose and fructose) at different concentrations and eight brands of commercial coconut water were analysed. The δ¹³C of all samples were not significantly different (P > 0.05) between the EA-IRMS and CM-CRDS analyses. The natural coconut water (C3 plant) had δ¹³C ranging from −21.58‰ to −27.79‰ (mean −24.64 ± 0.91‰). Three sweeteners (C4 plant) contained δ¹³C between −11.46‰ to −13.16‰. The use of δ¹³C determination can detect adulteration of a singular extraneous sweetener (either glucose or sucrose) down to a level of 2% of adulteration. For the detected δ¹³C values of commercial products labelled as ‘no added sugar’, about 50% of products were adulterated. This study demonstrates that CM-CRDS can be used as an alternative analytical platform to EA-IRMS for detecting adulterated products, especially coconut water.