Factors hindering compliance with food safety among food handlers in Benin city markets, Edo state, Nigeria

Outbreaks of food-borne diseases globally still exist and continue to generate public health concerns. This raises possible concerns that the extent of food safety regulation is not taken seriously among the regulation authorities, food handlers and even the consumers of food in markets and streets. Evidence of the impact of these food-borne illnesses exists and they pose not only health but also economic challenges on global health and national growth. This study aimed to examine the compliance with safe food hygiene practices and factors hindering compliance with food safety practices among food handlers in Benin-City, Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted in conducting this study. Total of 269 participants were recruited after ethical clearance from health authority in Benin-city. Data collection was with use of structured questionnaire and observational checklist. Retrieved data were coded and recorded in secured system, analysed using SPSS Ver.21. More than half (57.7%) of the respondents had poor compliance with (21.9%) having good compliance, while the rest (20.4%) had fair compliance. Also, majority of the respondents identified lack of potable water in cooking areas, lack of financial support and training as factors hindering their food safety compliance. Lack of compliance with food safety exist among food vendors in the markets. The relationship between the years of handling food, level of education of food handlers and compliance with food hygiene practices was statistically significant. Non-compliance with food safety exist among food vendors in the markets despite self-reported positive practices.

Trends of Fast Food Consumption among Public University Students

Purpose: This study aims to increase the awareness of fast food impact on body health and overweight status among public university students. Materials & methods: The sample size consists of 100 students of a public university. Data collection was conducted via an online survey. A survey was conducted by employing questionnaire and administered online. The questionnaire asked the students about their fast food consumption patterns that consist of their preferences, and trends of consumption. Result: The study demonstrates that one of the most popular fast food joints among public university students was McDonald’s (51%%). Majority of the respondents consume fast food only once or twice in a month (67%) and most of them consume fast food as a meal (67%). Conclusion: The overall findingsindicate that public university students' fast food level of intake is not impacted by their perceptions on fast food.

Smart Pet Feeder System and Big Data Processing to Predict Pet Food Shortage

Focusing on pet owners who have tight daily schedule or physically disabled, this project proposed a smart pet feeder system with big data processing to predict pet’s food shortage. The project aims to help pet owners to regularly feed a correct amount of food to their pet as well as to predict the pet’s food shortage. The components used in this system are hx711 load cell amplifier, ultrasonic sensor, infrared sensor and servo motor. The ultrasonic sensor and the servo motor will be connected to adafruit, an internet of things (IoT) platform which provide online dashboard to allow pet owners to retrieve data from the sensors as well as to monitor the system activities. The online dashboard will also be connected to ifttt maker, another IoT platform to enable notifications via telegram. Pet owner will be notified via telegram every time the food is dispensed from the pet feeder system and if the pet food level is low. The system will dispense pet food automatically either at pre-set time or when pet comes near the pet feeder. More, the system can also collect data of pet food level to be used for time-series prediction on food shortage. Time-series prediction will use parallel processing method in handling big data for data pre-processing.

DNA methylation differs extensively between strains of the same geographical origin and changes with age in Daphnia magna

Background Patterns of methylation influence lifespan, but methylation and lifespan may also depend on diet, or differ between genotypes. Prior to this study, interactions between diet and genotype have not been explored together to determine their influence on methylation. The invertebrate Daphnia magna is an excellent choice for testing the epigenetic response to the environment: parthenogenetic offspring are identical to their siblings (making for powerful genetic comparisons), they are relatively short lived and have well-characterised inter-strain life-history trait differences. We performed a survival analysis in response to caloric restriction and then undertook a 47-replicate experiment testing the DNA methylation response to ageing and caloric restriction of two strains of D. magna. Results Methylated cytosines (CpGs) were most prevalent in exons two to five of gene bodies. One strain exhibited a significantly increased lifespan in response to caloric restriction, but there was no effect of food-level CpG methylation status. Inter-strain differences dominated the methylation experiment with over 15,000 differently methylated CpGs. One gene, Me31b, was hypermethylated extensively in one strain and is a key regulator of embryonic expression. Sixty-one CpGs were differentially methylated between young and old individuals, including multiple CpGs within the histone H3 gene, which were hypermethylated in old individuals. Across all age-related CpGs, we identified a set that are highly correlated with chronological age. Conclusions Methylated cytosines are concentrated in early exons of gene sequences indicative of a directed, non-random, process despite the low overall DNA methylation percentage in this species. We identify no effect of caloric restriction on DNA methylation, contrary to our previous results, and established impacts of caloric restriction on phenotype and gene expression. We propose our approach here is more robust in invertebrates given genome-wide CpG distributions. For both strain and ageing, a single gene emerges as differentially methylated that for each factor could have widespread phenotypic effects. Our data showed the potential for an epigenetic clock at a subset of age positions, which is exciting but requires confirmation.

Ancestral ecological regime shapes reaction to food limitation in the Least Killifish, Heterandria formosa

In populations with contrasting densities of conspecifics, we often see genetically-based differences in life histories. The divergent life histories could be driven by several distinct agents of selection, including, amongst other factors, variation in per-capita food levels, the intensity of crowding-induced stress, rates of pathogen transmission, mate encounter rates, and the rates with which waste products accumulate. Understanding which selective agents act in a particular population is important as the type of agents can affect both population dynamics and evolutionary responses to density-dependent selection. Here we used a full-factorial laboratory experiment to examine whether two populations of a small live-bearing freshwater fish, characterised by high-density/low-predation or low-density/high-predation conditions, are adapted to different per-capita food levels. As expected, fish from the higher density regime handled food limitation better than those from the lower density regime. Although the lower food level resulted in slower growth, smaller body size, delayed maturation and reduced survival in both populations, especially survival to maturity showed a highly significant population x food-level interaction. At low food, 75% of fish from the low-density population died, compared to only 15% of fish from the high-density population. This difference was much smaller at high food (15% vs. 0% mortality), and was mediated, at least partly, through a larger size at birth of fish from the high-density regime. While we cannot preclude other agents of selection from operating differently in the study populations, we demonstrate that selection at higher density confers a greater ability to cope with low per-capita food availability.

Prospective associations of the original Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling system and three variants with weight gain, overweight and obesity risk: results from the French NutriNet-Santé cohort

Nutrient profiling systems (NPS) are used to classify foods according to their nutritional composition. However, investigating their prospective associations with health is key to their validation. The study investigated the associations of the original Food Standards Agency (FSA)-NPS and three variants (Food Standards Australia New Zealand Nutrient Profiling Scoring Criterion (NPSC), Health Star Rating NPS and the French High Council of Public Health NPS (HCSP-NPS)), with weight status. Individual dietary indices based on each NPS at the food level were computed to characterise the dietary quality of 71 403 French individuals from the NutriNet-Santé cohort. Associations of these indices with weight gain were assessed using mixed models and with overweight and obesity risks using Cox models. Participants with a higher dietary index (reflecting lower diet nutritional quality) were more likely to have a significant increase in BMI over time (β-coefficients positive) and an increased risk of overweight (hazard ratio (HR) T3 v. T1 = 1·27 (95 % CI 1·17, 1·37)) for the HCSP-Dietary Index, followed by the original FSA-Dietary Index (HR T3 v. T1 = 1·18 (95 % CI 1·09, 1·28)), the NPSC-Dietary Index (HR T3 v. T1 = 1·14 (95 % CI 1·06, 1·24)) and the Health Star Rating-Dietary Index (HR T3 v. T1 = 1·12 (95 % CI 1·04, 1·21)). Whilst differences were small, the HCSP-Dietary Index appeared to show significantly greater association with overweight risk. Overall, these results show the validity of NPS derived from the FSA-NPS, supporting their use in public policies for chronic disease prevention.

Competition and growth in Aedes aegypti larvae: effects of distributing food inputs over time

Male and female mosquito larvae compete for different subsets of the yeast food resource in laboratory microcosms. Males compete more intensely with males and females with females. The amount and timing of food inputs alters both growth and competition, but the effects are different between sexes. Increased density increases competition among males. Among females, density operates primarily by changing the food/larva or total food; this affects competition in some interactions and growth in others. Food added earlier in the life span contributes more to mass than the same quantity added later. After a period of starvation larvae appear to use some of the subsequent food input to rebuild physiological reserves in addition to building mass. The timing of pupation is affected by the independent factors and competition, but not in the same way for the two sexes, and not in the same way as mass at pupation for the two sexes. There is an effect of density on the timing of pupation for females independent of competition or changes in food/larva or total food. Male and female larvae have different larval life history strategies. Males grow quickly to a minimum size, then pupate, depending on the amount of food available. Males that do not grow quickly enough may delay pupation further to grow larger, resulting in a bimodal distribution of sizes and ages. Males appear to have a maximum size determined by the early food level. Females grow faster than males and grow larger than males on the same food inputs. Females affect the growth and competition among males by manipulating the number of particles in the microcosm through changes in feeding behavior. Mosquito larvae appear to have evolved to survive periods of starvation and take advantage of intermittent inputs of food into containers.

Effectiveness of Swallowing Care on Safe Oral Intake Using Ultrasound-Based Observation of Residues in the Epiglottis Valley: A Pragmatic, Quasi-Experimental Study

The demand for methods to ensure safe oral consumption of food and liquids in order to prevent aspiration pneumonia has increased over the last decade. This study investigated the safety of swallowing care selected by adding ultrasound-based observation, evaluated its efficacy, and determined effective content of selected swallowing care. The study employed a pragmatic quasi-experimental research design. Participants were 12 community-dwelling adult patients (age: 44–91 years) who had experienced choking within 1 month prior to the study. After the control phase, in which conventional swallowing care was provided, trained nurses provided ultrasound observation-based swallowing care for a minimum period of 2 weeks. Outcome measurements were compared across three points, namely T1—beginning of the control phase, T2 and T3—before and end of the intervention phase. The mean durations of intervention were 30.8 days in the control phase and 36.5 days in the intervention phase. Pneumonia and suffocation did not occur in the control phase or the intervention phase. The safe intake food level and the food intake level score significantly improved during the intervention phase (p = 0.032 and 0.017, respectively) by adding eating training based on the ultrasound observation. However, there was no significant improvement in the strength of the muscle related to swallowing by the selected basic training. Our results suggest that swallowing care selected based on the ultrasound observation, especially eating training, safely improved safe oral intake among community-dwelling adults with swallowing dysfunction.

The healthy and sustainable bugs appetite: factors affecting entomophagy acceptance and adoption in Western food cultures

Purpose The purpose of this paper introduces entomophagy as an alternative food consumption (AFC) capable of contributing to food well-being (FWB) among Western consumers. Specifically, it provides a conceptual framework where key factors related to the acceptance and adoption of insects and insects based foods are identified. This paper takes a sociocultural, symbolic and contextual perspective to offer marketers and public policymakers a set of recommendations to promote entomophagy as a sustainable and healthy food practice to help consumers achieve their FWB. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, first, the authors review the literature on entomophagy from its rise to establishment in different food cultures by considering two main perspectives as follows: historical and sociocultural. Second, the authors review the salience of entomophagy as an important AFC capable of addressing sustainability and food health issues. Finally, the authors propose a framework in which the authors define key factors related to the acceptance and adoption of an insects-based diet in Western food cultures. The identification of these factors will help marketing and public policymakers to set up educational programs and strategies to promote entomophagy as a sustainable and healthy food practice within different Western food cultures, and thus, help consumers to achieve their FWB. Findings To identify the key factors influencing the acceptance of entomophagy as AFC, this paper provides a summary of the core motivators characterizing the acceptance and adoption of insects and insect-based foods in Western food cultures. Specifically, the authors identify the key factors influencing the acceptance of entomophagy as food consumption in Western food cultures and based on the extant literature by Batat et al. (2017) the authors provide an entomophagy framework that includes both idiocentric and allocentric factors considering the adoption of insects and insect-based foods in Western food cultures. Table I provides a summary. Social implications The authors believe entomophagy has the potential to generate societal benefits, as its appeal at the social (hunger in the world), environmental (reducing meat consumption and its impact on ecology) and health (less calories and nutritive food) level. Originality/value The research contributes to creating new knowledge that simulates debate among public policy and marketing scholars about entomophagy as a novel food in Western food cultures. The focus on key factors related to its acceptance and adoption of Western food cultures calls for empirical evidence to be tested in the marketplace using possibly different insect categories and other novel foods. Further, the framework should stimulate thinking about ways the authors can change consumers’ negative perceptions of disgusting food. Marketers and policymakers can achieve it by making their practices more efficient in terms of promoting sustainable AFC, as well as with efficient policy initiatives focused on supporting AFC, including the regulation of insect introduction.