Browsing by Author "Ashagrie, Henok"

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    Assessment of Acrylamide Levels in Coffee Powder, Potato Chips and French Fries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
    (Addis Ababa University, 2019-07) Ashagrie, Henok; Zewdu, Ashagrie (PhD)
    Acrylamide is a processing contaminant with genotox ic and carc inogen ic properties and it is form ed in food when free asparagine reacts with reduc in g sugars at high temperature. The present study was des igned to eva luate the levels of acrylamide in three commercial heat processed foods (roasted coffee powder, potato chips and French fries) co llected from the market in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A total of90 samples were studied for their acrylamide levels us ing high performance liquid chromatography with a diode array detector. The acry lamide levels obtai ned ranged from 134.56 ~lglkg to 1138.86 ~lglk g in roasted coffee (n=30), from 2 11 .09 ~l glk g to 35 14.60 ~lglkg in potato chips (n=30) and from 35.66 ~l g/kg to 1410. 75 ~glkg in French fr ies (n=3 0). 43% of the coffee (n= 13), 57% of the potato chips (n= 17) and 40% of the French fries samples (n= 12) showed acry lamide leve ls higher than the maximum va lue recommended by the European Commiss ion. Eth iopia is the largest coffee consuming country in Africa and one of the biggest in the world. Nearly half of the coffee collected from Addis Ababa contained levels beyond the European Commission recommended value. The high levels of ac rylamide obta ined in the present study call for actions when considering large consumptions. These high leve ls ofacrylamide a long with the significantly la rge consumption history make it diffi cult to consider health ri sks associated with acrylamicic to be low. A knowledge assessment of French fries producin g street vendors (n=30) indicated a huge gap in informat ion as none of the interviewed producers knew about acrylamide, its formation, health impacts or food s susceptible to its fo rmat ion. Keywords: Acrylam ide; Mail lard Reaction; Coffee; Potato Chi ps; French Fries; Carc inogen