Effect of Cooking Oil and Packaging Material on the Microbial Load of Rabbit Meat Floss

Abstract

The shelf life of processed food products is dependent on the interplay of several factors which include packaging and ingredients used in producing such foods among others. In this study, meat floss was produced from rabbit meat obtained from Chinchilla breed using three commonly  available cooking oils: Refined palm oil (RPO), Soya Oil (SO) and Canola Oil (CO). The resulting Rabbit Meat Floss (RMF) were packed in  three materials: Aluminium Foil (AF), Ziploc (ZPL) and Polypropylene (PP). The RMF were stored at room temperature and analysed for microbial load  (log10^-5cfu/g) on days 7, 14 and 21 of storage. The study was a 3 x 3 factorial experiment fitted into a completely randomized design  replicated three times. Interacting with storage days ZPL had significantly lower (p<0.05) microbial load throughout the duration of the experiment  with the lowest value of 2.6log10^-5cfu/g on day 7. For cooking oil type-storage days interaction, RMF with SO had the lowest microbial load of  1.3log10^-5cfu/g on day 7 while RMF with RPO had the lowest microbial loads on days 14 and 21. Overall RMF with RPO stored in ZPL consistently had  the lowest microbial loads throughout the duration of the study.