Emerging challenges in maintaining marine food-fish availability and food safety.

The marine finfish and crustaceans contribute immensely to human nutrition. Harvesting marine food-fish to meet the global demand has become a challenge due to reduction of the fishery areas and food safety hazards associated with increased pre-harvest and post-harvest contaminations. The causes of low fish availability and contaminations were reviewed following the published literature from 2000 to 2023.

Coconut fat and serum lipoproteins: effects of partial replacement with unsaturated fats.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of reducing saturated fat in the diet, or partly replacing it with unsaturated fat, on the serum lipoprotein profile of human subjects. The study had two intervention periods, 8 weeks (phase 1) and 52 weeks (phase 2). In phase 1, total fat was reduced from 31 to 25% energy (polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA):saturated fatty acids (SFA) ratio increased from 0.

Application of immunoassay in the food industry.

Immunoassay techniques using the highly specific and sensitive nature of immunological reactions have been developed and applied in the food industry for detecting the naturally occurring constituents, antibiotics, pesticide residues, microorganisms, and fragments of microbial constituents related to food analysis, food production, food processing, and food safety. Both polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies are employed for the development of the various immunoassay systems, including enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) and radioimmunoassay (RIA). Immunoassay techniques provide complementary and/or alternate approaches in reducing the use of costly, sophisticated equipment and analysis time, but still maintaining reliability and improved sensitivity.

Inactivation of aflatoxin B1 in corn meal, copra meal and peanuts by chlorine gas treatment.

More than 75% degradation of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) was achieved after treatment of AFB1-spiked corn meal, spiked copra meal (the residue of the kiln-dried coconut kernels after mechanical expulsion of oil) and peanuts artificially infected with Aspergillus parasiticus, with 11, 16 and 35 mg chlorine gas per g meal or peanuts, respectively. At these chlorine gas treatment levels, extension of the exposure period of the corn meal and copra meal beyond 2.5 hr, and the peanuts beyond 1 day, did not increase the percentage degradation of AFB1.

Fungi associated with dried fish in Sri Lanka.

The mycoflora of dried-salted fish from markets in Kandy, Sri Lanka was studied with emphasis on visibly spoiled dried fish. A total of 61 fungal isolates from 25 dried-fish were isolated and identified. The most prevalent fungus was Aspergillus niger.