Modern Scientific Press

ABSTRACT: This paper is an attempt to assess the variations on the state of household food security in Bahi district, Tanzania. A cross sectional research design with quantitative and qualitative methods was employed to 130 household heads. Interviews, focus group discussions, documentary review and field observations were used in data collection. Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were used to analyze quantitative data while content analysis has been used to analyze qualitative data. Findings indicate that the total actual grain available during the time of survey was 740 bags, meeting only 61.1% of the total requirements of 1210 bags. Analysis on the number of meals eaten per day during the time of this study affirmed that only 20.8% of the sampled households could afford the normal three meals a day. The study concludes that, transitory household food insecurity is real in the study area calling for viable measures to be taken including improvement in food production, availability, proper storage, supply, proper use of the harvested crops and improvement of peoples’ livelihoods are inevitable. This can be done through provision of soft credit, agricultural inputs, farming and storage education and improvement of transport systems to ensure timely supply and distribution of food in times of critical food shortage.

ABSTRACT: Egg has been an important nutritional deity food for human since ancient times. It is one of the highly nutritious foods among the human food stuff cycle and can be an effective delivery system for health – regulating nutrients, vitamins, proteins, fat etc. Despite the nutritional content of eggs, some potential health risks are associated with their consumption, including exposure to environmental contaminants and in some instances individual allergies. Eggs might contain elevated levels of heavy metals originated mainly from food and water feed, which are mainly influenced by the surrounding environment. Antibiotics are used by the veterinarians and poultry industry to enhance growth rates, health of the birds and etc. Although antibiotics have considerable benefits in most cases, the illegal use of these drugs has led to the accumulation of toxic antibiotic residues in edible poultry products destined for human consumption. Aflatoxins are toxic and carcinogenic secondary metabolites produced by some strains of Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasitscus during their growth on feed. Aflatoxin-contaminated feed may affect the growth and health of poultry and the possible transmission of such toxic residues to edible eggs resulting in potential hazards to human health. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) have been used in the public health sector for disease vector control and in agriculture to control crop pests for the past several decades in Jordan. They are characterized by low water solubility and high lipid solubility, leading to their bioaccumulation in fatty tissues. Therefore, they can accumulate in human body fats and the environment posing problems to human health. This study is an overview of the most important chemical hazards caused by the consumption of eggs.

ABSTRACT: Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) is a spice and widely consumed. It contains numerous bioactive components including phenolic and flavonoid substances. Besides, it exhibits a variety of health promoting effects. In the present study, the antioxidant activity and total phenolic and flavonoid contents of different parts (leaves, stem, young rhizome, and old rhizome) of ginger were assessed. The antioxidant activity of the old rhizome as determined by the FRAP and TEAC assays, as well as the total phenolic content were higher than those of the young rhizome, leaves and stems. Furthermore, a high positive correlation was found between the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity (R² = 0.994 and 0.993 for the results from the TEAC and FRAP assays, respectively), indicating the total phenolic content might be the main contributor to the antioxidant activity of four parts of ginger. On the contrary, there was a weak correlation between the total flavonoid content and antioxidant activity (R² = 0.202 and 0.207 for the results from the TEAC and FRAP assays, respectively), which indicated that the flavonoid components could not be the main contributor to antioxidant capacity of ginger. The results showed that the rhizome (either old or young) could be good natural resources of antioxidants.