NUTRITIONAL VALUE AND FOOD SAFETY ISSUE OF STREET FOODS (YOGURT, CHOTPOTI, SALAD DRESSINGS) AVAILABLE IN CHITTAGONG AREA: PUBLIC HEALTH IMPORTANCE

Abstract

Street food vending is a prevailing and distinctive part of a large informal sector in Chittagong city. Street food plays an important socio-economic role in meeting food and nutritional requirements of city consumers at affordable prices to the lower and middle-income people. Among the street foods, Yogurt, Chotpoti and Salad dressings are becoming more popular now a day. The aim of this study was to determine the nutritional composition and microbial quality of somestreet foods commercially available in Chittagong. Three types of samples (salad dressing, yogurt, chotpoti) and six from each item were collected from Chittagong city and analyzed by following standard procedure. Based on the findings, protein content of different yogurt varied from 8.56 to 14.35/100 g whereas fat content ranged from 0.38/100 g to 3.27/100 g. Carbohydrate and Protein content of different types of chotpoti were from 8.34/100 to 25.44/100 g and 10.38 to 17.22/100 g respectively. Different types of salad dressings contained from 4.04/100 to 29.55/100 g carbohydrate. Nutritional composition usually varied due to using different types of raw materials. The TPC (Total Plate Count) value of yogurt, salad dressing, chotpoti were found as 15×103, 50×105,15×102 CFU/g which is higher. At last it can be concluded that this study are useful not only in providing information on the nutritional content of several types of street foods but also in improving the public understanding of healthy food choices.