ISSN: 2320-1924 *Md. Anwar Hossain Institute of Food Science and Technology, Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr. Qudrat-I-Khuda Road, Dhanmondi, Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh. E-mail: anwar_bcsir@yahoo.com Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences (Available online at http://www.jpabs.com ) PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF FORTIFIED HIGH ENERGY BISCUITS SERVED IN SCHOOL OF POVERTY PRONE AREAS IN BANGLADESH Md. Anwar Hossain * , Ashish Kumar Sarker and Sahana Parveen Institute of Food Science and Technology, Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr. Qudrat- I-Khuda Road, Dhanmondi, Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh Received: 03 Feb 2013/ Revised: 05 Mar 2013 / Accepted: 10 Mar 2013 / © JPABS–2013 ABSTRACT Two hundred nine fortified high energy biscuit (HEB) samples from seven different locations were collected and examined for moisture, ash, protein, fat, crude fiber, sugar, carbohydrate and energy by AOAC methods. Iron was estimated by Flame Atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) and vitamin A by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). While mesophyllic aerobic bacteria, coliforms, escherichia coli, salmonella, staphylococcus, bacillus cereus, enterobacter spp. and yeasts & moulds were tested for microbial contamination. In the physicochemical examinations such as food energy value, protein, fat, iron and vitamin A content of some fortified high energy biscuits did not comply with the World Food Programme (WFP) permissible limits but moisture, sugar and microbial loads of most of the fortified high energy biscuits were in the permissible limits. The physicochemical analysis showed that there was no significant difference observed among the industry wise category of biscuit samples in the analysis of moisture, protein, sugar and ash. While significant differences (p<0.05) were observed in fat, carbohydrate, vitamin A, iron and energy content. It was concluded that a substitution of biscuit ingredients by biscuit industries can improve the quality of fortified high energy biscuit and thus the acceptability of these biscuit will increase to the WFP. Key words: World Food Programme (WFP), AOAC, FAAS and HPLC. INTRODUCTION Biscuits are nutritive snacks produced from unpalatable dough those are transformed into appetizing product through the application of heat in an oven 1 . They are ready-to-eat, convenient and inexpensive food product those containing digestive and dietary fibre with principles of vital importance 2 . The principal ingredients are flour, fat, sugar and water while other auxiliary ingredients such as milk, salt, flouring agent and aerating agent are used for making biscuit 3 . Biscuit is a rich source of fat and carbohydrate and it is high energy giving food. They are also a good source of protein and minerals 1 . The nutritional value of biscuits varies with the type of cereal used. Biscuit generally contains fat (18.5%), carbohydrate (78.23%), ash (1.0%), protein (7.1%) and salt (0.85%) 4 . Among ready-to-eat snacks, biscuits possess several attractive features including wider consumption base, relatively long shelf-life, more convenience and good eating quality 5&6 . Long shelf-life of biscuits helps to give large scale production in short time and distribution of this biscuit in whole over the country is possible for a long time. Good eating quality makes biscuits attractive and therefore, protein fortification and other nutritional improvements are essential for good quality of biscuit. Development of fortified biscuits or other composite flour bakery products is the latest trend in bakery industry. The growing interest in these types of bakery products is due to their better nutritional properties and possibility of their use in feeding programs and in catastrophic situations such as starvation or earthquakes 7 . Biscuits are the most popularly consumed bakery items in the world. Some of the reasons for such wide popularity are their ready to eat nature, affordable cost, good nutritional quality, availability in different tastes and longer shelf life 8 . Food spoilage is a metabolic process that causes foods to be undesirable or unacceptable for human RESEARCH ARTICLE