4. Conclusions
The Malaysian edible bird’s nests generally have high nitrite
and nitrate contents. The cave nests had significant higher
nitrite and nitrate contents than the house nests. The house
nests had significant higher lightness and yellow components
but lower red components compared to the cave nests. This
implied that the house nests were brighter and more yellow
whereas the cave nests were darker and redder. Correlation
analysis showed that nitrite content has a strong correlation
with lightness of edible bird’s nests. The lightness was also
correlated with the yellow and red components in edible
bird’s nests. This indicated that cave nest with darker and
redder colour had higher nitrite contents than house nest
which had brighter and more yellow in colour. Colour is a
good indicator to determine the presence of nitrite contents
in edible bird’s nests.