Assessment of Acrylamide Levels in Coffee Powder, Potato Chips and French Fries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2019-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
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
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Keywords
Acrylamide, Maillard Reaction, Coffee, Potato Chips, French Fries, Carcinogen