Study of Hygienic practices of street food vendors in ... - Shiats.edu.in

The Allahabad Farmer Vol. LXVIII, January - 2013 No. 2was absent. From 4 samples of mango shake, 2 samples (50%) were tested negative forSalmonella and rest (50%) samples did not showed the presence of Salmonella. Twosamples of banana shake were also analyzed and in only one sample (50%) Salmonellawas found. These findings were similar to the findings of (Ankur Titarmare et al.,2009) who evaluated presence of Salmonella in pineapple, orange and carrot juices.The highest frequency of occurrence of Salmonella was in cucumber (100%)followed by kakadi (66.6%) and arhar dal (50%). Cooked vegetables like brinjal, potatoand cauliflower and cooked chicken were tested negative for Salmonella. Among rawfood items paneer and fried chaat item like samosa did not showed the presence ofSalmonella. Results are given in Table1.Distribution of Salmonella and Coliforms in street vended foods, fruit juices andwater samples collected from different localities in various conditions (Table2) revealedthat the foods sampled from crowded sites were more contaminated (69%) as comparedto less crowded sites (31%). Foods that were prepared on street sides at stalls wereheavily contaminated (76%). On stalls and Dhaba,s with only one servant or only theowner, the degree of juice and food contamination was high (43%) as compared tohaving two servants (31%) or three servants (26%). This can be explained by the factthat a single servant does all the work right from the peeling, preparation and serving,while performing these multiple tasks one person does not wash or clean the handsfrequently and thus is likely to contaminate juices and foods. Poor personal hygiene ofvendor resulted in higher contamination (66.6%), reducing to (33.4%) where hygienewas fair. This may be due to dirty clothing, unhygienic handling and serving practices,contaminated hands and lack of knowledge of hygienic practices (Tambekar et al.,2006). The food items which were prepared long before eating were highly contaminated(64%) than those prepared just before eating (36%).The data collected from the street food vendors in Allahabad City was subjectedfor the identification of Hazards and Critical Control Points at every step of food productionchain. Seven main steps were identified in street vended food production chain. Table 3reports current Hazards and Critical Control Points observed at the main steps along thestreet food production chain. In current study control measures were applied asprecautionary measures to reduce risk along the street food production chain.7