• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2002

A survey on Korean families′purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables was conducted to increase understanding of families′food decision making. Two hundred ninety seven families with at least one elementary-school age child were selected from four elementary schools to complete a questionnaire during April, 2001 in Gyeongju, Korea. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, T-test, and ANOVA statistics were used to analyze the data. The major findings are as follows: Families bought fresh fruits and vegetables at the public markets or the farmer′s markets and a large supermarket most frequently in both summer and winter. Families grew produce by themselves and bought them from farmers directly least frequently in both summer and winter. Families whose housewives had less than middle school education brought fruits and vegetables from Agricultural Co-ops and grew thens by themselves more frequently compared to those who had higher education. On the other hand, families whose housewives had graduated from 4 year college bought fruits and vegetables from large supermarkets more frequently compared to those who had lesser education. "Quality"and "safety production"of fruits and vegetables and "clean environment of store"were the three most important factors when they decided the place to buy fruits and vegetables. "Being treated as a valuable customer" and "ease of finding things"were the two least important factors. Families whose housewives were in their thirties valued "cleanness of the store"and "being treated as a valuable customer"important factors when they decided the place. Families whose housewives had less than middle school education thought that price, availability of public transportation, and availability of locally grown food were the important factors for deciding the place compared to those who had higher education. The price was the factor which low-income families thought important for decision making on the place to buy fruits and vegetables.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.295-303
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• 2007

As a result of life-style changes, consumer's concerns of food have shifted from calories and nutrition to health and convenience. Fresh-cut products are one such new direction for fruit and vegetable consumption. In this study, the vitamin C, mineral, and pesticide contents of various fresh-cut products were analyzed. According to sensory evaluations, the key reason for a lower than expected overall acceptability of many fresh-cut products is that they are likely to have browning and can easily lose their freshness. Also, the sensory evaluation showed that shriveling, the degree of browning, softening around the cut edge, and off-flavors were the primary factors affecting the quality of fresh-cut products. As a nutritional factor of quality, vitamin C content was not practical with regard to fresh-cut lettuce because the level was very low. For product safety, residual pesticides were detected in the fresh-cut products, but the results showed that all items were under permitted levels and considered safe. In evaluation of the microbial levels of the fresh-cut market products, the levels of viable cells, mold, yeast, coliform bacteria, and enterobacteriaceae were not significantly different based on the summer and winter seasons. The levels of S. aureus and Listeria spp. in the products were higher during the summer season than the winter.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.21 no.2 s.86
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• pp.201-208
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• 2005

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of blanching time on changes of hazardous factors in leafy vegetables treated by systemic and non-systemic pesticides. Changes of hazardous factors in leafy vegetables treated by systemic and non-systemic pesticides showed the same trend. In changes of microbial counts in leafy vegetables according to blanching time, the total plate count was significantly decreased by blanching and total coliforms were not detected in any of the vegetables. In traceable metal contents of fresh vegetables before washing, the levels in spinach, chard and whorled mallow were 0.042, 0.040 and 0.032 ppm for Pb, 0.020, 0.023 and 0.019 ppm for Cd, and 0.029, 0.034 and 0.030 ppm for As, respectively. Therefore, the levels of Pb, Cd and As in leafy vegetables were very traceable and in terms of food safety there was no problem. On the other hand, the traceable metal contents in leafy vegetables did not show significant difference by blanching and blanching time. Nitrate contents in fresh vegetables before washing were detected at traceable levels. The nitrate contents in spinach, chard and whorled mallow were significantly decreased by $22\%,\;17\%\;and\;14\%$ after blanching time of 5 min, 9 min and 10 min, respectively.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2019

The consumption of fresh vegetables has been related to recurrent outbreaks of foodborne diseases (FBD) worldwide. Therefore, the development of effective alternative technologies is necessary to improve the safety of these products. This study aimed to isolate and identify epiphytic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from fresh fruits and leafy vegetables and characterize their antagonistic capacity due to their ability to produce bacteriocins or antibacterial compounds. For this, 92 LAB isolates from fruits and leafy vegetables were screened for antagonistic activity. Two strains with the highest and broadest antagonistic activities were selected for further characterization; one from cantaloupe melon (strain CM175) and one from cilantro leaves (strain C15). The cell-free supernatants (CFS) of CM175 and C15 were found to exhibit antagonistic activity against FBD-causing pathogens. The CM175 and C15 strains were identified as Pediococcus pentosaceus and Lactobacillus graminis, respectively. Notably, the P. pentosaceus CM175 CFS stopped the growth of Salmonella Typhimurium, Salmonella Saintpaul, Staphylococcus aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes, and delayed Escherichia coli O157:H7 growth. Moreover, L. graminis C15 CFS delayed the growth of all indicator pathogens, but did not completely stop it. Organic acids and bacteriocin-like molecules were determined to be possibly exerting the observed antagonistic activity of the identified LAB strains. Thus, application of the antagonistic compounds produced by Pediococcus pentosaceus and Lactobacillus graminis could be a novel and ecological strategy in developing antimicrobial biopreservatives for the food industry and mitigating FBD by reducing the biological contamination in fruit and vegetable orchards, mainly via their potential in controlling both gram-negative and gram-positive pathogenic bacteria.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.277-283
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study was conducted to increase understanding of agriculture through agricultural experience programs for adolescents living in self-reliance residence hall, and to investigate changes in work performance ability through changes in hand function. Methods: There were 11 subjects, and the average age was 18.2 years, all males without disabilities. The agricultural experience program consists of a total of 10 sessions including orientation and watching videos on future agriculture, creating vegetable gardens, planting, managing each crop, harvesting, visiting the processing room, and selling at a local food store. Results: The change in agricultural literacy by the agricultural experience program positively improved from a score of 113.73 to 127.91 (p = .008). The changes by sub-item are as follows. The value and safety of agri-foods (p = .020) and agriculture and natural environment (p = .007) were significantly improved. The function and value of rural areas (p = .050), production of agricultural products (p = .160), processing and distribution of agricultural products (p = .248), and agricultural policies (p = .058) were not significantly changed. The simple function of the hands was measured by the number of pegs inserted during 30 seconds, and the assembly function was measured by the number of pegs inserted during 60 seconds. In the case of simple function, the dominant hand was improved from 14.82 to 15.83 (p = .014), andthe non-dominant hand was also significantly improved from 13.79 to 15.01 (p = .002). There was no significant improvement in the simple function (p = .153) and assembly function (p = .770) of both hands. Conclusion: It is considered that the agricultural experience program will enable youths living in self-reliance residence halls to enhance their understanding of agriculture as an occupation, and enable them to play a role as wise consumers by positively affecting improvements in their agricultural literacy and simple hand functions.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.849-860
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• 2024

The use of natural ingredients in meat processing has recently gained considerable interest, as consumers are increasingly attracted to clean-label meat products. However, limited research has been conducted on the use of natural substitutes for synthetic phosphates in the production of clean-label meat products. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the potential of oyster shell powder as a substitute for synthetic phosphates in pork patties cured with Chinese cabbage or radish powders. Four different groups of patties were prepared using a combination of 0.3% or 0.6% oyster shell powder and 0.4% Chinese cabbage or radish powder, respectively. These were compared with a positive control group that contained added nitrite, phosphate, and ascorbate and a negative control group without these synthetic ingredients. The results showed that patties treated with oyster shell powder had lower (p<0.05) cooking loss, thickness and diameter shrinkage, and lipid oxidation than the negative control but had lower (p<0.05) residual nitrite content and curing efficiency than the positive control. However, the use of 0.6% oyster shell powder adversely affected the curing process, resulting in a decreased curing efficiency. The impact of the vegetable powder types tested in this study on the quality attributes of the cured pork patties was negligible. Consequently, this study suggests that 0.3% oyster shell powder could serve as a suitable replacement for synthetic phosphate in pork patties cured with Chinese cabbage or radish powders. Further research on the microbiological safety and sensory evaluation of clean-label patties during storage is required for practical applications.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate microbiological contamination of fresh vegetables in Korea. Twenty types of vegetables were tested for total aerobic bacteria, coliforms, Escherichia coli, yeast and mold, and pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Cronobacter sakazakii, Shigella, and Campylobacter. Levels of total aerobic bacteria and coliform on 20 vegetables were between 3.74 and 8.04 log CFU/g, and 0.16 and 5.02 log CFU/g, respectively. The highest contamination levels of total aerobic bacteria were observed on water dropwort, sprouts, mungbean sprout, and ballflower root. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) in microbial contamination levels of total aerobic count, coliform, E. coli, yeast and mold between organic and nonorganic vegetables. When isolation methods using selective agars were applied, L. monocytogenes, B. cereus, Salmonella and Campylobacter were isolated from some fresh vegetable samples. Results of API kit tests showed that L. monocytogenes was identified on Chinese cabbage, cucumber, soybean sprouts, and iceberg lettuce while Salmonella was identified on Korean leek. Furthermore, Campylobacter jejuni was also identified in more than 50 of the 100 samples. However, when positive samples from API kit were tested for real-time PCR or 16S rRNA sequencing method, only B. cereus from perilla leaf, carrot, water dropwort, and sprouts showed positive results. These results indicate that selective agar and API kit detection methods might result in false positive results for some pathogens. Therefore, studies need to improve isolation or confirmation methods for such pathogens.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2004

This study was executed to determine the cumulative dietary risk of PAHs exposed by food ingestion. Food samples including barbecued beef, barbecued pork, grilled chicken, ham, bacon and vegetable oil which were collected from food markets. These samples were saponified, extracted and cleaned up to purify PAHs, and then the purified sample solutions were analyzed by HPLC-FL. Generally, the levels of total PAHs in barbecued beef (0.2 ppb), bacon (0.3 ppb), barbecued pork (0.7 ppb), ham (0.8 ppb), and vegetable oil (1.2 ppb) were low, whereas the level of total PAHs in grilled chicken (9.3 ppb) was significantly high. For the exposure assessment of PAHs due to food ingestion, PAHs levels converted into TEQ$_{BaP}$, the average body weight for 20-73 age group and consumed levels of food proposed from report on the National Health and Nutrition Survey were used. The estimated lifetime average daily intake of dietary PAHs was 4.32${\times}$10$^{-4}$ $\mu\textrm{g}$-TEQ$_{BaP}$kg/day as the mean value. The dietary risk adjusted to cancer potency of benzo(a)pyrene as 7.3 (mg/kg/day)$^{-1}$ was 3.44${\times}$10$^{-6}$ based on current data.ata.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.97-105
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• 2023

Concentration of nitrogen, one of the major elements, and ratio of two nitrogen forms (NH₄⁺ and NO₃^-) in the nutrient solution affect the quality and food safety of fresh vegetable produce. This study was conducted to find an appropriate strength and NH₄⁺:NO₃^- ratio of a nutrient solution for growth and development of a Romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. longiflora) 'Caesar Green', a representative leafy vegetable, grown in a home hydroponic system. In the first experiment, plants were grown using three types of nutrient solution: A commercial nutrient solution (Peters) and two strengths (GNU1 and GNU2) of a multipurpose nutrient solution (GNU solution) developed in a Gyeongsang National University lab. Plants grown with the GNU1 and GNU2 had greater shoot length, leaf length and width, and biomass yield than Peters. On the other hand, the root hairs of plants grown with Peters were short and dark in color. Tissue NH₄⁺ content in the Peters was higher than that of the GNU1 and GNU2. The higher contents of NH₄⁺ in this solution may have caused ammonium toxicity. In the second experiment, eight treatment solutions, combining GNU1 and GNU2 solutions with four ratios of NO₃^- :NH₄⁺ named as 1, 2, 3 and 4 were used. Both experiments showed more growth in the GNU2 group, which had a relatively low ionic strength of the nutrient solution. The growth of Romaine lettuce showed the greatest fresh weight along with low tissue NO₃^- content in the GNU2-2. This was more advantageous in terms of food safety in that it suppressed the accumulation of surplus NO₃^- in tissues due to the low ionic trength of the GNU2 subgroup. In addition, this is preferable in that it can reduce the absolute amount of the input of inorganic nutrients to the nutrient solution.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.1027-1034
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• 2011

In order to provide the basic information on the agricultural environment in Daegwallyeong Highland, the characters of weather, water, and soil quality were investigated. The meteorological characteristics was monitored by automatic weather system (AWS) at 17 sites. The quality of water for samples were collected monthly at 24 sites depending on landuse style. Soil samples were collected from a forest, grassland, and the major vegetable cultivation areas such as potato, carrot, Chinese cabbage, onion, head lettuce, and welsh onion field. The weather showed the mountain climate, and the average yearly temperature is $6.4^{\circ}C$, the average temperature in January is $-7.6^{\circ}C$ and the average temperature in July is $19.1^{\circ}C$, and the change of temperature on the districts of Daegwallyeong is severe. The yearly record of precipitation shows 1717.2 mm. The water quality of crop field was worse than forest or grassland in Daewallyeong highland. In 2005, annual T-N, T-P, SS distribution of Chinese cabbage field showed 7.4~11.3, 0.061~0.1, and $3.0{\sim}53.0mg\;L^{-1}$. The potato field showed 3.1~7.2, 0.019~0.056 and $0.5{\sim}3.0mg\;L^{-1}$, respectively. Being compared of water quality between potato field and chinese cabbage field, it showed that the water quality of Chinese cabbage field was worse than potato field. On farming, the soil of crop cultivation showed pH 5.6 to 6.8, $18.0{\sim}42.4g\;kg^{-1}$ of OM, $316{\sim}658mg\;kg^{-1}$ of Avail. $P_2O_5$. The content of cations showed $0.41{\sim}0.88cmol_c\;kg^{-1}$ of Exch. K, $3.73{\sim}7.07cmol_c\;kg^{-1}$ of Exch. Ca and $1.17{\sim}1.90cmol_c\;kg^{-1}$ of Exch. Mg.