Microbiological safety of street vended fruit chats in Patiala city.

Street-vended foods are appreciated for their unique flavours and convenience, as well as for maintaining the nutritional status of the population. They also assure food security for low–income urban population and livelihood for a significant proportion of the population in many developing countries. In spite of these potential benefits, street foods have been reported to be contaminated with pathogens and have also been implicated in food-borne epidemics. Raw foods, especially ready-to-eat salad vegetables, sprouts and cut fruits have been implicated in outbreaks of food borne diseases in both developed and developing countries. ‘Fruit chats’ comprising of slices of banana, guava, papaya and apple with a dash of salt and lemon juice enjoy a very high consumer preference in Northern, Western and Eastern parts of India. Fruit chats are usually consumed as a nutritious midday meal or as an accompaniment to meals and like all street foods are exposed to the abundant sources of contamination and could be important in causing food borne illnesses to consumers. In the present study, we selected the city of Patiala to assess the microbiological safety of fruit chats where the latter is appreciated and consumed by people across the socio economic spectrum.