15 replies to this topic

[raffay]

i am raffay and i am an MS student of microbiology department at university of karachi, presntly i am working as microbiologist in Pakistan Agricultural Research Council. want to work on bacterial toxicology in stable food. kindly help me for the subject so that i can clearly determine the direction of my work

[Simon]

BUMP for Raffay.

[Charles.C]

Dear raffay,

What kind of help are you seeking, eg some recommended textbooks or ?

Rgds / Charles.C

[raffay]

Dear raffay,

What kind of help are you seeking, eg some recommended textbooks or ?

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear charles.c
first tell me if i work on bacterial toxicology in rice, flour and other stable food will it have any worth becuase stable food rarely face bacterial problem. actually my employer want me to work on stable food items, one of my colique is already working on fungi and mycotoxins so i dont want to work on fungus. you suggest me something that can help me for the selction of my research topic. i have gone through the literature for Bacillus cereus problem in rice i did not find it worthy for rice and flour. i need precious guidence from you people.
regard
raffay

[Charles.C]

Dear raffay,

Not sure about normal procedure in yr area so apology if next questions obvious. I hv rather different background (applied chemist) however other people here may well specialise yr field.

Presume this is intended as the thesis part of a MS course by (part-time?) lecture and not a totally driven research MS course (IMEX, both may occur in UK).

The available project scope is controlled by University / Employer ?

For purely pragmatic reasons and based on above, it is my experience to preferably select a topic which although hopefully of general usefulness and originality, should ideally hv an adequate existing knowledge base for you to generate a thesis within a fixed time frame. On other hand if you hv open time limit, situation may be different, ie more scope ?

Rgds / Charles.C

PS the Hot Meal Box thread running parallel to this post suggests that yr initial idea for a topic is not without some value

[raffay]

Dear raffay,

Not sure about normal procedure in yr area so apology if next questions obvious. I hv rather different background (applied chemist) however other people here may well specialise yr field.

Presume this is intended as the thesis part of a MS course by (part-time?) lecture and not a totally driven research MS course (IMEX, both may occur in UK).

The available project scope is controlled by University / Employer ?

For purely pragmatic reasons and based on above, it is my experience to preferably select a topic which although hopefully of general usefulness and originality, should ideally hv an adequate existing knowledge base for you to generate a thesis within a fixed time frame. On other hand if you hv open time limit, situation may be different, ie more scope ?

Rgds / Charles.C

PS the Hot Meal Box thread running parallel to this post suggests that yr initial idea for a topic is not without some value

[raffay]

charles,
i am confused for the selection of research topic actually i have completed my course work for MS/Ph.D and now i have to select a research topic for my bech work i am a microbiology student and want to work for applied microbiology so i want different ideas that can directly benefit our enviroment and to our people.


regard
raffay

Dear raffay,

Not sure about normal procedure in yr area so apology if next questions obvious. I hv rather different background (applied chemist) however other people here may well specialise yr field.

Presume this is intended as the thesis part of a MS course by (part-time?) lecture and not a totally driven research MS course (IMEX, both may occur in UK).

The available project scope is controlled by University / Employer ?

For purely pragmatic reasons and based on above, it is my experience to preferably select a topic which although hopefully of general usefulness and originality, should ideally hv an adequate existing knowledge base for you to generate a thesis within a fixed time frame. On other hand if you hv open time limit, situation may be different, ie more scope ?

Rgds / Charles.C

PS the Hot Meal Box thread running parallel to this post suggests that yr initial idea for a topic is not without some value

[Jason H.Z.C.]

Hi Raffay,

Clostridium Botulinium(Am I spell right? ) present in canned food is a topic. It does produce the toxin in very low oxygen environment, the toxin is wellknown.

Furthermore histamine in fish products, toxin produced by Staphyloccocos during its loading and multiplication in the food are also proposed.

Hope this could help you a bit

Best regards,

Jason

[raffay]

hi jason!
yes i know about botulinum toxin produced by clostridium botuninum what i asked is give me idea about bacterial toxin which might be produced in stable food like rice, flour, pulses . can food is processed food and yes canning has a problum of botulinum toxin. my job is related with the agriculture produces specialy with rice , flour , wheat and pulses and problem is that these foods have very low water content so bacterial problem is not so prominent in these food. so if you people have any idea about bacterial problem in these food than kindly let me know . well thanx a lot for your responce.
regard
raffay

Hi Raffay,

Clostridium Botulinium(Am I spell right? ) present in canned food is a topic. It does produce the toxin in very low oxygen environment, the toxin is wellknown.

Furthermore histamine in fish products, toxin produced by Staphyloccocos during its loading and multiplication in the food are also proposed.

Hope this could help you a bit

Best regards,

Jason

[GMO]

hi jason!
yes i know about botulinum toxin produced by clostridium botuninum what i asked is give me idea about bacterial toxin which might be produced in stable food like rice, flour, pulses . can food is processed food and yes canning has a problum of botulinum toxin. my job is related with the agriculture produces specialy with rice , flour , wheat and pulses and problem is that these foods have very low water content so bacterial problem is not so prominent in these food. so if you people have any idea about bacterial problem in these food than kindly let me know . well thanx a lot for your responce.
regard
raffay

Yes dried rice isn't a risk but as soon as you cook rice, the bacillus cereus spores germinate and because the other bacteria are not heat resistant, they generally have no competition so if cooked rice is stored at room temperature, bacillus cereus can produce toxin. The toxin is heat resistant so further cooking or reheating will not destroy it and will only cause the bacillus bacteria to become spores again only to germinate again once the dish is at room temperature. Which is why personally if I'm cooking rice, I only ever cook it and eat it hot. I never eat rice salads in delis etc because I'm suspicious of their controls and on one occasion I reported a local takeaway to the EHO for leaving rice out at room temperature and reheating it for customers.

I believe it can also be a risk in flour and pulses but rice is notorious for it and having had bacillus cereus food poisoning in Varanasi once, it was not pleasant.

[raffay]

exactly i have gone through some of reports about Bacillus cereus toxin which may be either emetic or diharrial toxin. and if i work on that toxin for my MS thesis will it be new or as worthy as an ms thesis should be? tell me how should i strar my work on that toxin? and what type of analysis i should perform? if you have further literature on that than kindly forward me.
once again thank you sir for your precious time
regard
raffay

Yes dried rice isn't a risk but as soon as you cook rice, the bacillus cereus spores germinate and because the other bacteria are not heat resistant, they generally have no competition so if cooked rice is stored at room temperature, bacillus cereus can produce toxin. The toxin is heat resistant so further cooking or reheating will not destroy it and will only cause the bacillus bacteria to become spores again only to germinate again once the dish is at room temperature. Which is why personally if I'm cooking rice, I only ever cook it and eat it hot. I never eat rice salads in delis etc because I'm suspicious of their controls and on one occasion I reported a local takeaway to the EHO for leaving rice out at room temperature and reheating it for customers.

I believe it can also be a risk in flour and pulses but rice is notorious for it and having had bacillus cereus food poisoning in Varanasi once, it was not pleasant.

[GMO]

Sorry Raffay but you're more likely to have access to academic papers that we're not able to access. It might be worth doing a literature search on bacillus cereus and what research has been done then thinking "what interesting question do I want answering?" then seeing if it's been answered in previous research. Off the top of my head, I could think of a few questions:

1. What is the incidence of bacillus cereus toxin in commercial products containing rice?
2. Consideration of bacillus cereus toxin formation in catering establishment HACCP plans vs. incidents found in products?

My mind's gone a bit blank, perhaps you can think of some?

[Inesa]

Hi raffay

I'm a student as well (food safety) don't know much about rice, only about B.cereus. But I got some questions in my head reading your comments and would love to read some reasearch (when I have time )answering them:

Are all types of rice equally contaminated with spores? (Jasmin, Basmati, eccological?? )
Is rice more contaminated at some parts of World than in the others?
How can contamination be minimised, thinking about very first steps of rice production (or other steps?)?


last, maybe stupid but modern:
how global warming can affect rice relating to spores

[GMO]

Better than my (dull) suggestions Inesa!

Perhaps you can also look at the influence of spices on b. cereus? Maybe a long shot but I remember reading that some spices can inhibit bacterial growth?

Oh another thing which I wondered about was toxin growth in soaking rice. Some people soak rice prior to cooking, which I always wondered whether toxin could form in this situation. We did some testing once and didn't detect any but then I suspect there would be more competition in raw rice from other microflora which would not be killed off (yet).

[Chief Inspector]

Not just soaking, but rinsing. Rinsing in various types of water: chlorinated, bottled, tap, well, city sources. Do any of them inhibit or promote spore growth more than others?

Shelf stable staples are only stable if kept clean. What about adding insect/rodent/animal droppings into the 'stable' mix? Soaking and rinsing at that point (with micro-contaminates), does the biological growth or transformation from spore to toxin increase at a greater rate?

There's a vast number of topics to research in the 'shelf-stable' environment, mainly when outside influences are introduced, which is extremely commonplace.

[raffay]

hello ines!
questions are never without any concept i m not sure my answer will satisfy you or not but i will comment according to my limited knowledge
well usually as you also know that microorganisms are eubiqutous in nature and any of the food might get contaminated at any stage or step as for as Bacillus cereus is concerned the main source of this bacteria which i know is soil so usualy this organism come from the soil from very begning step and as bacillus is spore forming so its spores survive any of the antimicrobial treatment and as rice is cooked and kept at room temprature or refregeration temprature spores start germination to form vegetiative cells of bacillus. well contamination may vary with the geographical conditons and i dont have any idea that if the type of rice has any corelation with the extent of contamination with bacillus cereus
your questions are always well come bcz it will also improve my knowledge
regard
raffay

Hi raffay

I'm a student as well (food safety) don't know much about rice, only about B.cereus. But I got some questions in my head reading your comments and would love to read some reasearch (when I have time )answering them:

Are all types of rice equally contaminated with spores? (Jasmin, Basmati, eccological?? )
Is rice more contaminated at some parts of World than in the others?
How can contamination be minimised, thinking about very first steps of rice production (or other steps?)?


last, maybe stupid but modern:
how global warming can affect rice relating to spores