| dc.description | Milk, considered as nature’s single most complete food (O’Mahony, 1988),
is the most valuable and regularly consumed foods throughout the world.
Like most of the countries, in Bangladesh milk is generally sold in two
ways; most cases the farmers bring milk in open pots and sell it directly in
the market without any processing and in another case, the milk companies
collect milk from the farmers or dairy farms, process it by pasteurization
treatment and package the processed milk which is then sold in shops
under specific brand name. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | A total of 32 milk samples were collected from 8 sources. Among them three
were raw (designated as R1 to R3) and five were pasteurized milk (designated
as P1 to P5). Each of the collected samples was investigated during the period
from May to December, 2012. Microbiological tests such as viable plate count,
coliform plate count, Staphylococcus plate count and Gram’s staining were
performed to determine the loads of microbes in raw and different brands of
pasteurized milk. Total viable counts (TVC) of three raw milk samples, R1, R2
and R3, were 745000 cfu/ml (log 5.87), 1357500 cfu/ml (log 6.13) and 1972500
cfu/ml (log 6.29), respectively. The presence of Escherichia coli in the samples
of R1, R2, and R3 were 236 cfu/ml (log 2.37), 268 cfu/ml (log 2.42), 940 cfu/ml
(log 2.97), respectively, but the presence of Staphylococcus were 798 cfu/ml (log
2.90), 590 cfu/ml (log 2.77), 615 cfu/ml (log 2.78), respectively. The average
values of TVC (cfu/ml) were 98500 cfu/ml (log 4.99), 68450 cfu/ml (log 4.83),
195000 cfu/ml (log 5.29), 18950 cfu/ml (log 4.27) and 53375 cfu/ml (log 4.72),
respectively for the samples of P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5 brands of pasteurized
milk, where as Staphylococcal count were 869 cfu/ml (log 2.93), 647 cfu/ml
(log 2.81), 443 cfu/ml (log 2.64), 858 cfu/ml (log2.93) and 28 cfu/ml (log1.45),
respectively. The coliform counts were 166 cfu/ml (log 2.21), 91 cfu/ml
(log1.95), 348 cfu/ml (log 2.54) and 101 cfu/ml (log 2.00) for the samples of P1,
P2, P3, and P5, respectively. Coliform were not detected in P4 pasteurized
milk sample. Therefore, it was concluded that high counts of bacteria were
found in most of the samples. The detection of high counts of Staphylococcus
coupled with the presence of E. coli are of public health significance to
consumers. | en_US |
