Abstract:

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 600 million people fall sick after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year. Although various foods can serve as sources of foodborne illness, meat has been at the forefront of societal concerns in recent years. Meat is the source of some foodborne pathogens that have an important role on human health. In this study, it was aimed to examine the microbiological quality of raw bovine meat samples sold in Tokat province and to evaluate the results in the context of food safety. For this purpose, 18 raw meat samples purchased from butchers and markets were analyzed for total mesophilic aerobic bacteria, total psychrophilic aerobic bacteria, yeasts-molds, lactic acid bacteria, B. cereus, S. aureus, C. perfringens, total coliform, and fecal coliform. The presence of E. coli, E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. They were also investigated in these samples. The lowest and highest values determined for the parameters were as follows: total mesophilic aerobic bacteria 1.46×104-1.26×107 CFU/g, total psychrotrofic aerobic bacteria 1.01×104-2.65×106 CFU/g, yeasts-molds 3.00×103-1.70×104 CFU/g, lactic acid bacteria 2.70×103-3.60×104 CFU/g, B. cereus 102-7.20×104 CFU/g, S. aureus 2.60×103-2.57×105 CFU/g, C. perfringens 102-9.20×103 CFU/g, total coliform 3.80×101-2.90×104 MPU/g and fecal coliform <109.30×109. Salmonella ssp., E. coli O157:H7, and L. monocytogenes were not detected in the meat samples.

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