Fatty Acid Composition of Selected Street Foods Commonly Available in Malaysia

Abstract

Despite growing evidence of increased saturated and trans fat contents in street foods, little is known about their fatty acid (FA) compositions. This study aimed to analyse the saturated fatty acids (SFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and trans fatty acids (TFAs) content of 70 selected and most commonly available street foods in Malaysia. The street foods were categorised into main meals, snacks, and desserts. TFAs were not detected in any of the street foods. Descriptively, all three categories mainly contained SFAs, followed by MUFAs, and PUFAs. However, the one-way ANOVA testing showed that the differences between each category were insignificant (p > 0.05), and each FA was not significantly different (p > 0.05) from one to another. Nearly half of the deep-fried street foods contained medium to high SFAs content (1.7 g/100 g–24.3 g/100 g), while the MUFAs were also high (32.0–44.4%). The Chi-square test of association showed that the type of preparation methods (low or high fat) used was significantly associated (p < 0.05) with the number of SFAs. These findings provide valuable information about fat composition in local street foods for the Malaysian Food Composition Database and highlight the urgency to improve nutritional composition.

Fatty Acid and Sterol Profiles of Commonly Available Street Foods in Sri Lanka: Comparison to Other Countries in the Asian Region

“…In this study, all street foods contained TFAs, less than 2% of total fatty acids. Similar studies on fatty acid compositions of street foods in Asia, including India [5], Malaysia [61], and Central Asia [62][63][64], have reported the presence of TFAs in RTE street foods. Higher TFA contents (0.29-22.96% of total fatty acids) are present in street foods from India, while TFA was not detected in street foods from Malaysia.…”

“…Higher TFA contents (0.29-22.96% of total fatty acids) are present in street foods from India, while TFA was not detected in street foods from Malaysia. In India, vegetable ghee with high TFAs (2.5-29.9% of fatty acids) was mainly used for deep-frying and frying [5], and in Malaysia, palm oil and tub margarine, which do not contain TFAs, are used for frying [61]. Also, a review on the influence of heating during cooking on the TFA content of edible oils reported that TFAs were not produced during the heating of edible oils below 200 °C [65].…”