Abstract

The aimofthis studywas to investigate total fat and fatty acid composition in processed foods fromunorganized sector (without nutritional labels), with emphasis on trans fatty acid (TFA) content. A total of 41 products, dividedinto 5 categories, viz., salted snack foods (n=9), sweets (n=7), street foods (n=10), meal items (n=4) baked foods (n=11) were sampled for estimation of fatty acid composition. Results indicate mean total fat content in all foodsranged between 16.88 to 30.64%, with high saturated (36.14 to 58.20%) and trans fat content (1.18 to 3.40%). Palmitic acid (C16:0) was the highest fatty acid varying between 17.01% - 46.80% in all the processed foods, followed by Oleic acid (C18:2, n6cis). Elaidic acid (C18:1, n9trans), Linolelidic acid (C18:2, n6trans) and Vaccenic acid (C18:1, n11trans) were the trans fatty acids found in 93% of all the foods estimated. The quality of fats in most of the foods analyzed was found to be unhealthy due to high TFA content, which is a possible contributing risk factor for diet-related non-communicable diseases, and the consumers are unaware of the fat quality due to absenceof nutritional labels.

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