Sharma, SonikaMadhwal, Shweta2019-11-082019-11-082019http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810134833The present study was undertaken to assess food safety knowledge, storage practices and risk associated with refrigerated foods. A random selection of 300 household respondents was done from PAU Campus and nearby localities of Ludhiana District. The results revealed that all the respondents were considerably aware about the food safety issues having a score of 20.24/25. High mean awareness and knowledge scores were found in the respondents with age category of 35 to 45 years and above, mostly males and postgraduates. Results revealed that respondents were having good attitude and practices regarding food safety issues pertaining to refrigerator as most of the statements were found to be significantly (p<0.01) higher than the midpoint score of 3 on a rating scale of 1-5. The preferred method of cleaning refrigerator was dry wipes-cloth, followed by water and soap. Brand, price, safe food storage and energy consumption were the important features considered during purchase of refrigerator. Incidences of food borne diseases were found to be quite low in respondents having better food safety awareness (p<0.01), attitude, knowledge and good food safety practices:procurement (p<0.05), handling, cooking (p<0.01) and refrigerator cleaning (p<0.05). Majority of the perishable food items were stored in the refrigerator for 4-12 hours, raw fruits and vegetables (2-3 days) and processed/frozen foods (1 week). Aeromonas hydrophilla (35.16%) was the most prevalent among emerging pathogens detected in refrigerated foods while Listera monocytogenes (15.93%) was found to be the most prevalent among food borne pathogens. The results of stimulated trial revealed that it was safe to consume the food items within 6 to 8 hours of keeping freshly cooked food in refrigerator as the bacterial, yeast and mould count increased significantly (p<0.05) after the time interval of 8 hours. Refrigerated food items were found to be safe for consumption for 24 hours as they were under satisfactory level (<105) i.e. within the permissible limits (104) in case of bacterial count and (102) in yeast and mould count.ennullThesis