THE MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF STREET FOODS IN JAKARTA AS COMPARED TOHOME-PREPARED FOODS AND FOODS FROM TOURIST HOTELS

Street foods are ready-to-eat foods which are important for the diet o f especially poor people in developing countries. However, street food s are often suspected of being contaminated with pathogenic bacteria. The quality of street foods was compared with similar home-prepared fo ods and foods obtained from tourist hotels. Samples of three types of Indonesian dishes were analyzed for indicator organisms using dry hydr atable film. Additional western meals were also obtained from the hote ls. Background information was obtained from the food preparers by usi ng a questionnaire. The microbial quality of nasi goreng (fried rice) and sate ayam (grilled chicken with peanut sauce) was usually-acceptab le: numbers of total coliform were low and often no Escherichia coli w as found. Gado gado (a dish mainly consisting of vegetables, peanut sa uce and bean curd) had higher contamination levels. The gado gado obta ined from street food vendors had especially high counts of total coli form and Escherichia coli with median counts of 5.5 . 10(6) (total col iform) and 6.0 . 10(3) (E. coli), respectively. The serving temperatur e might contribute to this difference in contamination level because n asi goreng and sate ayam are served hot and gado gado is served cold. The quality of the three western foods obtained from hotels was not be tter than that of the Indonesian dishes served; however the quality di ffered among the four hotels from which samples were obtained. Even fo od obtained from five-star hotels was sometimes unsafe (counts per gra m for APC > 10(7); total coliform > 10(2); E. coil >10(7)). Lack of fa cilities and a limited knowledge of hygiene, particularly of the stree t food vendors, may have led to poor handling practices, such as stori ng cooked vegetables at ambient temperature for long periods, resultin g in relatively high levels of contamination.