2.3. Cultivation and enumeration of fungi in noodles, seasoning and chilli
This was carried out on agar plates of potato dextrose agar (PDA) using the pour and spread plate method. This was done by using the serial dilution technique. One gram of each brand of noodles, seasonings and chilli was aseptically transferred into 9 ml of sterile distilled water. This was stirred thoroughly for about 5 min (representing cold sample) and was boiled at 100 °C for 10 min representing hot sample). From the first dilution, 1 ml of the sample was inoculated into another 9 ml. of the sterile diluents, this represented the 10−2 dilution. 0.1 ml of this dilution was then transferred into sterile Petri dishes and molten potato dextrose agar was added and left to solidify. Each sample was made into triplicates and incubated at 28 °C for 48 h and colonies formed were counted. The mean counts for triplicate cultures were recorded as the fungal counts in the sample (Arora, 2004).