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R. I. TANNOUS1, W. Zakkour, E. Barbour, and I. Toufeili1. (1) Dept. of Nutrition & Food Science, American Univ. of Beirut, Riad El-Solh St., Beirut, 1107-2020, Lebanon Tehineh is a popular Middle Eastern food product used to make traditional dishes like “Hommos” and “Baba Ghannouj”. Tehineh industry is one of the major Lebanese food industries exporting to many countries. Recent outbreaks of Salmonellosis from Tehineh and Halawa consumption were reported in Europe and investigations showed that the Tehineh in question was imported from Lebanon and Turkey. Moreover, local newspapers reported excessive amounts of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) added to Tehineh to whiten its traditional beige color. As a result of the aforementioned problems, FDA banned the imports of Lebanese Tehineh. This study aimed to investigate the effects of microwave heating on Salmonella enteritidis, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus and on the oxidative stability of tehineh. Peroxide Value determination and viscosity measurement were performed as objective quality tests while sensory evaluation by smelling as the subjective test to detect rancidity. The microwave treatment at 100% power for 60 seconds decreased Salmonella enteritidis, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus by 3, 2, 2 and 1 log cycles respectively. In addition, the microwave treatment did not affect the quality of tehineh as panelists did not detect rancidity at 95% confidence interval and Peroxide Value remained almost similar to the untreated samples; while viscosity was not significantly different (P< 0.05). This suggested that tehineh packaged in small plastic containers can be pasteurized by microwave treatment. The second objective was to estimate, through a survey conducted on 500 Lebanese individuals, the average daily consumption of tehineh in order to assess the ingested TiO2 level and the associated risk of toxicity. The survey showed that the daily consumption of tehineh by the Lebanese population is approximately 17 ± 1.1 g and sixteen tehineh industries reported much lower than the allowable levels of TiO2 in their products. Therefore, the Lebanese consumer is at a low toxicity risk from the consumption of Tehineh.
Session 33, Food Microbiology: General
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |