Chinese Foods: Relationship Between Hygiene and Bacterial Flora

One hundred and sixteen samples of prepared elements of Chinese-style meals were examined for pathogens and other microbiological indicators of poor sanitary preparation. Bacillus cereus was isolated from 9% of samples, while neither Salmonella nor Clostridium perfringens was found. Egg rolls were shown to be supporting high numbers of organisms; this and the potential hazards from the usual methods of preparation are discussed. An attempt to correlate the results from bacterial analyses for each restaurant kitchen with scores from a series of hygiene indices is presented. When the strengths-of-association (correlation coefficients) were ranked in order, the result was very close to the expected sequence. The strongest association was high aerobic plate count vs. temperature control.