MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF STREET SOLD FR UITS, SAN-JOSE, COSTA-RICA

The sanitary quality of street sold fruits was analyzed during the per iod from march 1990 thru march 1993 in San Jose, Costa Pica. It looked for the presence of Salmonella spp. Shigella spp., Escherichia call a s well as fecal coliforms in natural refreshments, fruit salads and th e fruits most frecuently expended on streets, either in slices as the pineapple (Ananas comosus), papaya (Carica papaya), non-ripe mangoe (M angifera indica) and watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris) and those that ca n be eaten without peeling, like nances (Brysonima crassifolia) and jo cotes (Spondias purpurea). 25 samples of each fruit, 50 natural refres hments and 50 fruit salads were processed according to rinse solution method, and the bacteriological determination was based in the methodo logy described by Vanderzant & Splittstoesser and the Bacteriological Analytical Manual. In the same way, it was used the Most Probable Numb er for 5 tubes described in the Standar Methods of Water and Wastewate r in orden to analyze 15 samples of ready to use water by the fruit ha wker. The nutritional value was studied according to the food composit ion tables for Costa Pica, Latin America and USA. The results show tha t more than 30% of fruit samples, 70% of natural refreshments and 96% of fruit salad presented fecal coliforms. Same time, all of them prese nt important contamination indexes with E. call. Salmonella spp. and S higella spp. were not isolated. The water analysis revelead that 53% c ontained fecal coliforms, probably due to the lack of hygiene in the u tensils used to collect water. The nutritional evaluation shows that f ruit portions (except watermelon) satisfy more than 100% of the diary recommendation of vitamin C (60 mg) and 4-7% of the recommended ingest ion of dietetic fiber (30g).