Street foods are an integral part of cuisine all over society. The Street food vending profession allows vital income inflow to households involved in the selling of street foods. Even, street foods are a source to the most inexpensive, convenient, flavors, attractive, nutritious meals, and street food vending is a major source of employment and an income-generating occupation to homes [1, 2]. Street foods are defined as Ready-To-Eat (RTE) food and beverages prepared/sold through food vendors especially in streets and similar public places for immediate consumption at a later stage without further processing FAO, 2013 (Food and Agriculture Organization). It was estimated in the year 2013, that there are 2.5 billion persons who consume street foods daily [3]. Food vendors are defined as a person in the food trade who are professionally associated in direct contact with food [4]. It is important to pay attention to nutritional security and hygiene practices during food processing. Food Nutritional Security is defined “it’s a situation that is there when each people, at each time, keep physical, social, and economic access to adequate, secure, and nutritious food that obtains their dietary requirements and food preferences, and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation, health services, and care, allowing to an active and healthful life". Access to adequate food, care and feeding practices, sanitation, and health are the three determinants of nutritional security [5]. The essential differences between food security and nutritional: (1) the food security structure emphasizes an economic approach wherein food like a commodity is a central focus. (2) The nutrition security structure takes a biological approach wherein centers on the nutritional status of the human being [6].
The term food security is used in a traditional form that encompasses the four traditional dimensions of food security: food availability, food accessibility, food utilization, and stability [7]. Four elements construct the frame of food and nutrition security: availability, access, use and utilization, and stability. Stability originally affects each other elements of the basis [8]. The FAO in the year 2008 affirms that street foods have significant nutritional implications to the consumers [9]. Many nutrients are obtained from a wide range of street foods [10]. When children eat more of these foods than necessities, their bodies store the excess calories into the fat cells, which can develop obesity [11]. Various cooking methods affect nutrients, and the acrylamide content are present in foods varies widely [12, 13]. Street foods, commonly Ready-To-Eat (RTE) foods vend on stationary stalls, opened, half-closed, or closed tables or through handlers [14]. Street foods are commonly prepared and sold through food handlers without training and certificates [14]. The lack of basic infrastructure, lack of knowledge of hygiene, absence of potable water, improper storage facility, and improper environment in food operations [15]. WHO in the year 2019 estimated the global number of foodborne diseases about 600 million with about 420,000 deaths annually. Unsafe food generates a vicious cycle of disease, diarrhea, and malnutrition which significantly prevent public health and socioeconomic development [4].
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 has been on the life of millions of people who are affected through the pandemic. To an extent COVID-19 not only demonstrated just the changes to our (national and international) health systems; this illustrated the fragility of our food systems as well and was able to be disrupted [7]. Food security and food sustainability is recognized as strongly affecting dimensions with food systems during the Covid-19 pandemic [16]. SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted through contact surfaces, due to the capability of the virus to survive at the surfaces to several days [17]. Altogether, this raises the central question to the resilience of food systems, and it links to food nutrition security [7]. During the Covid-19 pandemic in India, the second wave of coronavirus are devastating [18]. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the comprehensive worsening to food insecurity worldwide [19]. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the livelihoods of the street vendors, and Street vendors themselves have not been alone in the fight. Low-income households that rely on street vendors to order for food supply are now paying more for access to food which could be having widespread effects [20].
Numerous studies have found onto food vendors in India has to find contamination to be mostly the result of poor hygiene and poor water quality at the time of food preparation, dirty utensils, poor personal hygiene, cutting or peeling fruits and vegetables long before consumption, and, crowded and dirty shopping area stationed on side busy roads [21]. In almost all types of street food, panipuri or gol gappas and Papdi chaat is more famous. Which are selling foods on the roadside without any protection against smoke, dust and using normal water without any treatment, poor handling and also unhygienic conditions keep together, and the street food is the main sources of foodborne diseases. Various types of bacteria or microbes are directly connected to food contamination, illness as diarrhea such as Escherichia coli (e.g., E. coli 0157:H7), Clostridium botulinum, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas sp. (Pseudomonas species), and Proteus sp. (Proteus species) [22]. Poor hygiene practices of street food vendors, defective holding, and inappropriate processing methods is as well responsive to street food contamination [23]. The microbiological contamination are present in street foods which lead of foodborne diseases [24].
It's necessary for the improvement of the quantity and quality of the training of the food vendors for implementing food nutrition security and providing the human right to get sufficient and safe food [25]. There are four major challenges to street food hygiene: 1) microbiological, 2) chemical, and 3) personal hygiene. 4) Environmental hygiene, which involves keeping food clean, separating raw and cooked foods, thorough cooking, maintaining temperature, and the use of safe water and food materials [23]. Nanotechnology provides comprehensive food solutions, including food manufacture, processing, and packaging, as well as the use of antimicrobial nanoparticles to protect our food products from foodborne disease [26, 27]. To reduce the incidence of food-borne illness, WHO established five key elements for food hygiene. This includes, 1) keeping food clean, 2) separating raw and cooked food, 3) cooking food thoroughly, 4) keeping food at safe temperatures, 5) using safe water and raw materials, and to established good hygiene practices (GHP), and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) system, the food safety management systems (FSMS) has developed into the last two decades [28, 16]. Codex plays a vital contribution to encouraging Food Control and Food Safety issues, and Food control systems are necessary for assuring the health and safety of domestic populations, vendor’s knowledge to the principles to food hygiene requires to be refreshed, to eliminate the risk of contamination in food [29, 30, 31]. The main objective of this study, to assess the nutritional security aspects, hygiene practices and to examine street food services among street food vendors during the Covid-19 pandemic, and to recommended measures for safe handling of Street Foods. Further discussion is done in detail in the methodology and results in the discussion section.