Quality of oil used to prepare French fries in Dhaka city

To evaluate the quality of oil used to prepare French fries, fifteen samples of three different categories were collected from Dhaka city. Using solvent extraction method, oils were extracted from the samples. Fatty acid composition, color, peroxide value (PV) and free fatty acids (FFA) of the extracted oils were analyzed. It was found that soybean oil and palm oil were used for frying purpose. Majority of the samples (60%) had peroxide value more than 10 meqO2/kg with highest value of 17.57(±1.39) meqO2/kg. Average color score was found 53.17(±12.73), yellow score was 17.16(±3.79) and red score was 7.2(±3.27). FFA content of the extracted oils were 0.33(±0.29) with the highest value 1.828(±0.029). Fatty acid composition revealed that palmitic acid and oleic acid were the dominant fatty acid with the highest concentration of 43.71±3.39% and 49.54 ±3.6314% respectively. Trans fatty acid was found in 80% of the extracted oils, most frequent trans fat was trans linoleic acid (C18:2) where as trans oleic acid (C18:1) was found in highest concentration 3.7020 ±0.3448. PV and trans fatty acids revealed that the quality of oil used in low cost shops were lower than middle and high cost shops.Bangladesh J. Sci. Ind. Res.53(2), 117-124, 2018