Are Sellers Who Have Low level of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice Selling Snacks With Harmful Food Additives? (Study of Street Food Vendors at Tadulako University, Indonesia)

This study is conducted to analyze the content of preservatives, sweeteners and harmful dyes in snack foods at Tadulako University and find out the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the seller about food additives. This type of research is descriptive with the research sample were three snacks sellers at Tadulako University. The foods studied were meatballs, tofu, tomato sauce and ice syrup. The results showed that all meatballs and fried tofu were not contaminated with borax and formalin preservatives. Tomato snacks tartrazine tainted tomato sauce, sunset yellow, and ponceau 4R. Syrup ice is exposed to sweetener benzoate, sorbate, saccharin and cyclamate. Benzoic sweetener and sorbate are still below the detection limit. Saccharin does not exceed the threshold, while the cyclamic sweetener at one seller exceeds the Indonesia National Standard threshold. Respondents who have lower knowledge scores, attitudes and practices than other respondents sell sweetened drinks more than the allowable Indonesia National Standard limit. Conclusions are tomato sauce and ice food snack syrup sold at Tadulako University which are contaminated with dyes and respondents with low knowledge, attitude and practices sell snacks with higher sweetener content.