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. 2023 Mar 14;12(6):1234.
doi: 10.3390/foods12061234.

Fatty Acid Composition of Selected Street Foods Commonly Available in Malaysia

Zainorain Natasha Zainal Arifen  1 , Mohd Razif Shahril  1 , Suzana Shahar  2 , Hamdan Mohamad  3 , Siti Farrah Zaidah Mohd Yazid  3 , Viola Michael  4 , Tanaka Taketo  5 , Kathy Trieu  6 , Sakinah Harith  7 , Nor Hayati Ibrahim  8 , Shariza Abdul Razak  9 , Hanapi Mat Jusoh  10 , Chua Hun Pin  11 , Jau-Shya Lee  12 , Risyawati Mohamed Ismail  13 , Lee Lai Kuan  14 , Hasnah Haron  1
Affiliations

Fatty Acid Composition of Selected Street Foods Commonly Available in Malaysia

Zainorain Natasha Zainal Arifen et al. Foods. .

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.

Keywords: Malaysia; coconut milk; deep-frying; fatty acid composition; preparation; processed food; saturated fat; street food; trans fat.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The average fatty acid (FA) composition from 39 street foods based on food category. PUFAs, MUFAs, and SFAs are the abbreviations for polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, and saturated fatty acids, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of street foods (n = 70) based on the classification of preparation methods and SFAs content in 100 g of food.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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