APPLICATION OF RTU MEDIA FOR BIOSAFETY OF MIE LETHEK, INDONESIAN BENDO-CASSAVA NOODLES, BASED ON CHROMOGENIC AGAR

Abstract

Detection of microbial contamination by plating methods, especially coliform bacteria and other pathogens, many still use conventional methods and take about 7 days to find out the results. RTU (ready to use) media is one of the selective media to determine microbes more quickly based on the color of the colonies on the agar media. This study used RTU media  for determination of biosafety of Mi Lethek. Mi Lethek, is cassava noodles originated from Bendo, Srandakan, Bantul, Yogyakarta, made from cassava starch and cassava flour. Production of  Lethek noodles uses traditional machinery and equipments. Biosafety analysis was performed on dried mie lethek. The presence of enteric bacteria is known by the presence of blue colonies for Eschericia coli and purple/magenta for Salmonella.  The results showed that microbial contamination in dried Lethek noodles was less than 10 cfu/g. Contamination of enteric bacteria was less than 10 2 cfu/10g. Indonesian standard (SNI) of dried noodles was 10 6 cfu/g for total of microbial and 10 cfu/g for enteric bacteria (E. coli). Although mie lethek quality complies SNI quality standards, sanitation should be improved.