DETERMINATION OF CONSUMER PREFERENCES FOR ANIMAL-DERIVED FOOD CONSUMPTION IN THE MARMARA REGION AND EVALUATION OF CONSUMER-RELATED VARIABLES IN TERMS OF MICROBIOLOGY

Abstract

Even if foods are produced using the most appropriate procedures during their production, transportation, and sales stages, the foods purchased can become significant risk factors for human health due to various variables once they enter a consumer's home. The purpose of this study is to determine the household consumption profiles of animal-derived food products (including milk and its products, meat and its products, seafood, and poultry and its products) for the provinces of Edirne, Tekirdağ, Kırklareli, Istanbul, Kocaeli, Adapazarı, Yalova, Bursa, Bilecik, Balıkesir, and Çanakkale in the Marmara region. Since the data were not normally distributed, the Kruskal-Wallis test, a non-parametric method, was used. According to the analysis results, significant differences were determined for meat and meat products as well as milk and dairy products in terms of microbiological parameters (p<0.05). On the other hand, no significant difference was obtained for seafood and poultry meat products (p>0.05). When looking at the source of the difference, both for meat and meat products and for milk and dairy products, E. Coli and the Coliform Group were obtained significantly higher.