A Study on Students' Intake of Street Foods and Their Perception toward Hygiene Status of Street Foods and Microbiological Analysis

We investigated the intake trends of street foods for middle school, high school and colleges students through the survey study. In addition, the factors affecting the students' consumption of street foods and their perception toward hygiene status of street vendor were studied. The levels of total aerobic bacteria, coliform groups and enterobacteriaceae in Kimbab, eomuk, and eomuk-kukmul were counted using 3M petrifilms. More than ninety seven % of the respondents had experienced street foods. All the respondents ate street foods 1 to 5 times a month. Forty percent of the respondent stated that 'good taste' and 'time-saving convenience' were their reason for eating the street foods. Their favorite foods were ddokbokgi and various fried foods. All the students responded that frying oil, drinking water, and soy sauce as well as the street vendors' attire and their cooking tools in street vendor were unsanitary. Forty percent of the respondents ranked frying oil as the most unsanitary substance. Eighty percent of the respondents responded that an enforcement of hygiene should be imposed on the street foods vendor. There were significant differences (p/g and contamination levels of enterobacteriaceae or coliform in Kimbab exceeded more than 10/g, which did not satisfy the microbiological standards. In conclusion, although the respondents thought that the sanitation of street foods was poor, most of them want the street food vendor to be maintained with better hygiene condition. This indicated that the regulation for safe street foods should be enforced and educational information about the preparation and serving for safe street foods should be provided to street food vendor.