Street food in Dushanbe, Tajikistan: availability and nutritional value

Abstract

Street food is part of the culture in central Asia. Although nourishing food can be found, unhealthier options are becoming increasingly popular – a marker of nutrition transition. The nutritional composition of street food in urban settings is, however, unknown. The objective of the present study was, thus, to characterise the street food availability in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. A total of 800 street food vending sites in public markets were selected through random and systematic procedures. Trained interviewers collected data on vending sites’ characteristics, location and food available. Samples of the most commonly available food were collected (ninety-nine homemade and thirty-five industrial). Macronutrients were quantified through proximate analysis. Fruit, drinks and food other than fruits were available, respectively, in 4·5, 40·5 and 87·4 %, of the vending sites. Among the latter, 63·6 % sold only homemade (e.g. bread, traditional dishes, snacks, pastries, sandwiches and cakes), 19·3 % only industrial (e.g. bread, snacks, pastries and cookies) and 17·1 % both types of food. Homemade food presented higher energy per serving compared with industrial food (median 452 v. 276 kcal/serving (1891 v. 1155 kJ/serving); P < 0·001). A high content of SFA (soup: 10·9 g/serving) and trans-fatty acids (cakes: 1·8 g/serving) was also found in homemade food. However, industrial wafers showed the highest content of these fatty acids (12·9 g/serving and 2·5 g/serving, respectively). Soft drinks were available in 68·5 % of the vending sites selling beverages. Homemade and industrial street food, with heterogeneous nutritional value, were widely available in Dushanbe. Hence, policies promoting the availability of healthy food should be encouraged.

Macronutrient composition of street food in Central Asia: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

“…Of the 30 street foods whose nutritional composition was analyzed in this study, the homemade foods had larger servings sizes and also energy content per serving, resembling the results found in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a neighboring country (Albuquerque et al., 2019). A single serving of some of the homemade dishes accounted for a large share of energy, almost half of the daily recommendation for an average adult (e.g., manty and lagman ), and macronutrients.…”

Street food in Eastern Europe: a perspective from an urban environment in Moldova

“…Home-made and industrial foods were found to have medium (12•6 kJ/g) and high (18•0 kJ/g) mean energy density, respectively (29) , which corroborates previous findings that street foods are energy-dense sources of nutrients for populations worldwide (10) . Industrial wafers and biscuits presented the highest energy density (approximately 20•9 kJ/g), possibly reflecting a high sugar and fat content (30) , as previously observed in samples of street food in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (26) . Although the free sugar content was not discriminated in this study, they may have a high sugar content, which is line with existing literature on street food composition (10,25,26,31) .…”

“…Industrial wafers and biscuits presented the highest energy density (approximately 20•9 kJ/g), possibly reflecting a high sugar and fat content (30) , as previously observed in samples of street food in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (26) . Although the free sugar content was not discriminated in this study, they may have a high sugar content, which is line with existing literature on street food composition (10,25,26,31) .…”

“…Although the results may not be generalised to other communities due to local cultural specificities, the methodology has a vast potential to be adapted to different settings (17) , allowing comparison of results. The low proportion of fruit found in Chişinȃu is in line with findings in urban Tajikistan (26) ; it should be noted that vending sites selling exclusively unprepared fresh fruit were not considered eligible in the FEEDcities study because these are usually more oriented to sell for household consumption and not for immediate consumption, as the definition of 'ready-to-eat' implies. The study was conducted in the summer, and the observed number and variability of types of vending sites might be higher than in other seasons, given that a substantial proportion of the informal vendors reported not working under adverse weather conditions.…”

“…This urban street food environment has particular characteristics. A higher proportion of stationary vending sites, mostly formal such as stands and kiosks, was found in Chişinȃu, in contrast with other urban settings in lower-middle-income country (11,25,26) . Also, the street foods available were more frequently westernised food options (e.g.…”