PRESERVATION OF NOILER (GALLUS DOMESTICUS) MEAT USING BLACK SEED (NIGELLA SATIVA) POWDER AS NATURAL PRESERVATIVE

The study was designed to determine the bacterial population and organoleptic properties of Noiler meat preserved using black seed powder. Three different weights of black seed powder were used BSP1 (5 g), BSP2 (10 g) and BSP3 (15 g) each mixed with 20 ml of water and BSP0 (0 g) as the control. Four Noiler birds of average of 700 g were used, they were prepared into carcasses of good quality, and each carcass was divided into two to get a total of eight pieces of the meat. The treatments were in duplicates with each treatment having two pieces of the Noiler meat. All the eight pieces of the meat were smoked, after smoking two pieces of the smoked meat were randomly selected and their surfaces were applied with one of the mixtures BSP1, BSP2 and BSP3, except BSP0 (the control) whose two pieces of meat were not applied with a mixture of black seed powder. After application of black seed powder (BSP) on the pieces of the meat, they were dried in ambient temperature and stored in boxes marked for each treatment for 15 days with daily visual observation. At the end of the storage period each treatment was divided into two parts one part was taken to the laboratory for determination of bacterial population and the other part was used for sensory assessment: appearance, texture, taste and general acceptability. The result of determination of bacterial population showed that, treatment BSP3 had the minimum bacterial count of 1.9 x 103 and the maximum bacterial count of 6.3 x 103 was found in BSP0 (the control treatment). The result of the organoleptic parameters based on Hedonic 1 – 5 Scale. The score for appearance showed that, treatments BSP0 had the best score of 4.6 and the poorest in BSP3 3.7 whereas the best texture was in the meat of treatments BSP1 and BSP2 with similar score of 4.2 each. The result for taste showed that treatment BSP2 4.5 was the best and the worst in BSP0 4.0 The best acceptability of all the treatments of the Noiler meat preserved using black seed powder was in the meat of treatment BSP2 4.5 and the less acceptable was the meat of treatment BSP0 3.6. The study shows that black seed powder is good natural preservative, it could be used to inhibit the growth of bacteria on meat, prolong the shelf life of meat and maintain desirable taste of meat. Therefore, it is recommended that, black seed powder of 10 g weight mixed with 20 ml of water be applied on the surface of meat for better preservation, as a natural product which is not harmful to human.