Prevalence of Tartrazine Dye Use in Grilled Chicken Production Centers: A Case Study of Ardabil Province

Background & objectives: Sometimes artificial dyes are used instead of saffron as a fraud to improve the color of grilled chicken. Due to the adverse effects of some industrial colors such as tartrazine on human health, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence of using this color instead of saffron in the preparation of grilled chicken. Methods: In a cross-sectional analytical study, 550 samples of colored grilled chicken were collected in a simple random sampling method in the cities of Ardabil province, 2016. Thin layer chromatography was used to extract the dye in the collected samples and the results were compared with the National Standard of Iran No. 2634. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistical tests. Results: The results showed that of the total samples of grilled chicken prepared for consumption in Ardabil province, about one third (31.81%) of tartrazine dye was used. Although, there was not significant correlation between the colors used in the samples and the sampling site using the Spearman Correlation Coefficients the percentage of using this color was different among different cities of the Ardabil province. The highest percentage of color was found in Sarein city (35.29%) and the lowest was in Kosar city (21.95%). Conclusion: The present study showed that in all cities of Ardabil province, synthetic tartrazine is used to dye grilled chicken instead of saffron dye. Almost one third of the grilled chicken samples were contaminated with tartrazine synthetic dye.