en تخصصي Special Original article Original article <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="line-height:115%">Background: </span></b><span style="line-height:115%">Street foods have gained popularity around the world in the past few decades. The current study was carried out in order to quantitative analysis of used cooking oils by Street Food Vendors (SFVs) of Lahore, Pakistan.</span></span><br> <span style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="line-height:115%">Methods:</span></b><span style="line-height:115%"> Fifty samples of cooking oil used by SFVs were collected. Also, a questionnaire was designed for qualitative assessment that revealed maximum vendors used vegetable ghee because of its low cost and practiced addition of new oil into the used one instead of disposing it. The samples were also quantified for their Moisture Content (MC), Free Fatty Acid (FFA), Peroxide Value (PV), Iodine Value (IV), and Total Polar Compounds (TPC). Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 21.</span></span><br> <span style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="line-height:115%">Results:</span></b><span style="line-height:115%"> The survey data indicated poor knowledge regarding the safety and health aspects of cooking oils among SFVs. Moreover, mean values indicated that most of the samples were unhealthy as they exhibited higher MC (>0.10%), TPC (>25%), PV (>10 meq. O₂/kg), and FFA (>0.20 mg KOH/g); and very low IV (<80 g/100g) in samples.</span></span><br> <span style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="line-height:115%">Conclusion:</span></b><span style="line-height:115%"> The analysis revealed that the SFVs of Lahore, Pakistan used low-quality cooking oil. The quantitative assessment of cooking oils showed high values of moisture, FFAs, polar contents, and PVs.</span></span><br> <br> <span style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="color:black">DOI:</span></span></b> <span style="line-height:115%">10.18502/jfqhc.9.2.10644</span></span></span></span></div> Oils, Plant Oils, Cooking, Food Quality, Fast Foods, Pakistan 78 87 http://jfqhc.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1256-4&slc_lang=en&sid=1 H. Ayub 0000-0003-2604-2295 No Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Management and Technology, Lahore 54,000, Pakistan M. Awan No Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Management and Technology, Lahore 54,000, Pakistan W. Nazir No Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Management and Technology, Lahore 54,000, Pakistan A. Sami No Food Safety Department, Punjab Food Authority, Lahore, Pakistan N. Khalid nauman.khalid@umt.edu.pk 0000-0002-8045-199X Yes Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Management and Technology, Lahore 54,000, Pakistan