An assessment of the microbiological safety of dry yam (gbodo) processed in South West Nigeria

Abstract

The microorganisms involved in dry-yam (gbodo) and water used in parboiling from different source (well, pipe-borne, river, stream and pond) were investigated. There was predominance of Staphylococcus aureus, fungi and coliforms in the gbodo samples. Coliforms were also observed in all the parboiling water. In gbodo, the total viable bacterial count was generally high, ranging from 1.1 x 10⁶ cfu/ml from Oyo processing area to 7.8 x 10⁵ cfu/ml from Iseyin processing areas. A large percentage of the microorganisms involved in gbodo were fungi ranging from 8.5 x 10⁵ cfu/ml in samples collected from Abeokuta to 1.2 x 10⁶ cfu/ml in samples from Ibarapa. S. aureus was isolated from all the dry yam samples with counts ranging from 2.5 x 10³ cfu/ml in samples collected from Iseyin processing area to 9.0 x 10⁴ cfu/ml from Baruba processing area. The control sample prepared at the laboratory has a low microorganism’ population compared with all the collected samples.

Keywords: Gbodo, Microbiological safety, yam, parboiling water