The antibacterial properties of stingless bee honey in Malaysia and its effects as food preservative

Abstract

Nowadays consumers are more anxious about the usage of artificial preservatives as it poses a number of serious health risks. Thus, the demands of using natural preservatives in food are on the rise. The knowledge on the preservative effect of Malaysian stingless bee honey is limited. Hence, the objectives of this research are to evaluate the ability of stingless bee honey to inhibit the growth of bacteria and to investigate the effectiveness of stingless bee honey as a natural food preservative. This research was conducted by characterizing honey based on physicochemical analysis including pH, moisture content and sugar profile (glucose, fructose and sucrose), and examining the antimicrobial properties of stingless bee honey. The antibacterial property of stingless bee honey and commercial honey was examined by agar well diffusion where the commercial honey demonstrated a lower antibacterial property [Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus)] due to processing and storage conditions. Three samples of food which are milk, bread and commercial sambal hitam (spicy black sauce mainly made from bilimbi, Averrhoa bilimbi) were selected to evaluate the preservative nature of honey by comparing the microbial growth in all food samples with and without the presence of honey. By evaluating the turbidity of food samples at 550nm, the result showed that microbial growth count of samples with stingless bee honey is lower compared to samples with commercial honey and without honey. Besides that, stingless bee honey successfully inhibited 53% of bacterial growth and it was discovered that stingless bee honey was more effective against the gram - negative bacteria. Thus, due to the antibacterial properties, stingless bee honey can be used as a natural food preservative.