Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2023)

This review presents the total microbial count of selected leafy greens dried in tray dryer. Commonly consumed fresh green leafy vegetables namely fenugreek, spinach, dill, coriander and curry leaves were selected for the study and given two pre-treatments that were one of plain water blanching and second of chemical blanching with KMS (0.02 percent) + MgO (1.5 gram) + citric acid (1 percent) + NaHCO3 (1.5 percent) + NaCl (1.5 percent) and dehydrated in tray dryer at the temperature of 55 °C for the time of 7-8 hours. Dehydrated vegetables were packed in polypropylene bags as packaging material and kept for 3 months storage period. Dehydration of vegetables mostly accomplished by convective air drying technology led to reduction in water activity of hygroscopic agricultural products which in turn greatly decreased the microbial growth. No microbial colonies were observed at initial stage before storage in all pre-treatments of those selected dried leafy greens while at final stage after storage period, little growth of colonies were observed due to slight increase in moisture content of dried vegetables during storage due to their hygroscopic nature. Total microbial count of those dehydrated leafy greens ranged from 1.10×10⁵ cfu per gram to 1.58×10⁵ cfu per gram with lowest and highest counts recorded for fenugreek and dill leaves respectively. The tray drying of vegetables at low temperature (50-60 °C) also demonstrated that an adequate pretreatments given can produce safer dried products.