Food additives are used to protect food, increase quality and extend shelf life in many stages, from production to consumption of food. Colorants added by food producers to color food or to adjust the color to desired level are among the commonly used food additives. Considering today's developing production technologies, foods fade or discolor at various stages of processing, storage, and sale due to physical and chemical conditions such as heat, light, pH and oxygen. Colorants are used to regain these color losses, to enhance weak colors, to give color to the food that is actually colorless, and to win back the favour of customers by hiding low quality. Therefore, the most used food colorants in Canada, China, European Union, Mexico and United States of America were presented. The chemical name, chemical structure, common uses, acceptable daily intake (ADI), and toxicity literature of six most used artificial food colors were reviewed.

Thirteen different mostly consumed cheese samples were obtained from different provinces in Turkey and were investigated in terms of contents of ergosterol, patulin and Ochratoxin A (OTA). Ergosterol, patulin and OTA analyses were carried out by using the apparatus of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Ergosterol contents of samples ranged from 30.27±0.69 to 144.76±9.41 mg/kg. The values of OTA in the samples were ranged from 6.96±0.05 to 41±0.2 µg/kg. Ergosterol was significantly correlated with OTA (r = 0.99, R2 = 0.98). According to this high correlation, ergosterol might be used as a more readily measurable indicator of potential OTA production. No patulin was detected in all samples. Absence of patulin on cheese samples may be explained with unsuitable media for patulin producing.

The aim of the study was to investigate the raw milk hygiene and quality among the small holder dairy farmers in Tawau area. A total of 216 samples were collected from the respective dairy farmers and milk collecting centre located at Mile 15, Tawau. Preliminary results indicated that the quality of the raw milks obtained at farm level contained were inferior with high bacteria load (> than 107 CFU/ml). The total coliform (2.9-3.8 CFU/mL) and Staphylococcus count (2.3-3.6 CFU/mL) were relatively high in certain samples. However, none of the food borne pathogens was found. Trace back study revealed that the causes of contamination were attributed by poor hygienic handling among the dairy farmers and insufficient for immediate chilling of raw milk. A significant reduction in bacteria load was observed if the raw milk chilled immediately at farm. The implementation of modified pre-milking sanitizing practices improved the microbiology quality of the raw milks obtained from respective dairy farms. Future study will focus more on the effect of prolong storage towards the microbiological quality of raw milk.