ygiene at stake: A street food vendor uses used cooking oil to fry fish in Jakarta on Tuesday. (JP/Umair

Thirty-five-year-old Annie was selecting some fried banana, stuffed tofu and fried tempeh at the cart of a fried snack seller near her home on Tuesday afternoon.

The fried snacks, commonly known as gorengan, went perfectly with a cup of hot tea, the housewife said. But Annie was quick to say that she did not often buy fried snacks for her family, as she preferred to cook them herself at home, where she can control the usage of cooking oil.

She is aware that many snack sellers often reuse the oil more than they should. Still, Annie said it would not stop her from buying the hot snacks straight from the cart.

“We know it’s unhealthy, but sometimes people cannot resist the tempting fried snacks sold on the street. More often it’s tastier,” she told The Jakarta Post with a grin.

Annie might not be the only one allowing herself occasionally to buy food fried in dark brown cooking oil.

To save on oil, food sellers and residents alike often reuse the clear yellow cooking liquid several times until it turns blackish brown. Many try to filter the brownish oil to be used again for frying food.

Bani (not her real name), who sells gorengan, said she commonly used up to seven liters of cooking oil in a day. She never throws away the used cooking oil.

When the used cooking oil turned darker after she had reused it, Bani said she filtered 7 L into 1 or 2 L, and then added 5 L of fresh cooking oil to prevent it from turning black.

Arief, a fried chicken vendor, said he commonly used up to 30 L of cooking oil in a month, but only threw about 5 L of it away. He uses the cooking oil up to six times until it turns blackish. Arif claimed he had never received any complaints from customers despite reusing the cooking oil several times. “[My fried chicken] always runs out, anyway,” he said.

As reusing cooking oil is a common practice in Indonesia, Hardinsyah, a nutritionist from Bogor Agricultural University in Bogor, West Java, urged people to stop doing it as cooking oil is better used one time only.

Oil can only be reused up to a maximum of three times depending on several factors, such as the type of food cooked, the method of cooking and the utensils used. Hardinsyah explained that cooking at high temperatures of up to 180 degrees Celsius caused the formation of trans fatty acids, which are harmful to the body.

“Reusing cooking oil many times causes the formation of harmful trans fats, even though the food is tastier, as many people have said,” he said adding that trans fats contributed to the increase of LDL, or bad cholesterol, which increased the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.

Matias Tumanggor, the chairman of the Association for Used Oil Collection for Renewable Energy (APJETI), told the Post that the association collected on average up to 10 tons of used cooking oil per month in the Greater Jakarta area.

However, he estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 tons of used cooking oil per month might be generated in Greater Jakarta.

“As a result of the popularity of fried food, Indonesia’s potential for recycling used cooking oil is actually tremendous,” he said.

Business startup Beli Jelantah, which purchases jelantah (reused cooking oil), is an option for people who want to dispose of their cooking oil in exchange for money. Jakarta resident Evi Yuliani, 36, regularly sells her used cooking oil at a price of Rp 1,500 (10 US cents) per L, which she said prevented her from using the oil over and over again. (sau)

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