Rising cost of living: Fishmongers, others reusing cooking oil

Traders, especially fishmongers, in the lake region are feeling the heat of the rising cost of cooking oil and are worried that they may have to close their businesses unless the government intervenes.

To cope, some of them resort to recycling the oil as a cost-cutting measure, posing serious health risks to consumers.

Ms Antonina Awuor operates a fast-food kiosk where she sells fries, chicken wings, bhajia and samosas in Siaya town.

High commodity prices have pushed her to start using liquid cooking oil repeatedly as she considers discarding it a waste.

Unaware of the dangers of reusing cooking oil, customers still troop to her kiosk to buy the crunchy snacks that they praise as some of the best in town.

Just two months ago, one litre of liquid cooking oil retailed for Sh250 but now it goes for Sh330, an increase of over 30 per cent.

Ms Awuor, a single mother of two, depends on her food kiosk to meet her family’s daily needs.

Across the road, Vivian Onyango sells deep-fried fresh fish, and like Ms Awuor, she has loyal customers who buy the fish from her every evening.

The cooking oil has been reused to the point that it emits black smoke whenever she adds new fresh oil to fry fish.

This practice is dangerous, says Dr Prestone Ochieng of Kitale Referral Hospital in Trans Nzoia County.

"Continuous heating of the cooking oil when frying food breaks the oil into a different substance altogether. The resulting substance is extremely harmful to health. Studies have shown that they are carcinogenic (cancer-causing) substances," Dr Ochieng said.

He added: "The shortcut of conserving the cooking oil for a week or more by the hotels and food joints and even at homes should stop because it exposes the body to numerous hazards."

The cooking oil should be discarded after being used twice.

"We reuse oil because we are in business. Disposing of two litres of oil after using it two times will result in losses for someone like me,” she said.

“The fish business depends on many things – the transport cost from the lake and the cost of oil, and in the end the profit margin is small," complained Ms Onyango.

The impact of the prolonged use of cooking oil, Dr Ochieng said, manifests in many ways.

"Some ailments like chronic inflammation, respiratory diseases, development of eye cataracts, liver problems are just a few cases associated with compounds that are emitted when oil is heated at high temperatures," he noted.

Most eateries in cities and towns in Kenya are not subjected to quality inspections to ascertain the level of hygiene and quality.

Terry Adhiambo, who plies her trade in Kisumu, says that selling deep-fried dagaa (omena) that she gets from Usenge in Siaya County, is costly and she rarely records profits.

Frying omena is meant to make it edible and safer to store for a long time.

To fry two basins of omena, she uses a 10-litre jerrican of cooking oil that used to cost Sh2,300. This has now risen to Sh2,650. When she adds transport and labour costs, she pays about Sh1,500 more than she used to spend.

“I have had to take a little break and venture into the groundnuts business, which doesn’t require oil to fry. I am hoping the prices will go lower so that I can go back to my usual business and serve my loyal customers,” Ms Adhiambo said.

In Kisumu and Siaya, traders have had to reduce the sizes of their servings, such as mandazis owing to the high cost of oil.

"The returns from my small business can't allow me to have snacks at home. When things were normal I could buy snacks in the morning for breakfast,” said Ms Sheila Awuor, a single mother of four, who is a tailor in Siaya town.

“Today even the size of mandazi has reduced to the extent that a child can consume three or four in order to be satisfied."

She has instead resorted to indigenous foods like sweet potatoes and githeri, which she said the children don't enjoy.

"They all love mandazis and bread, which I cannot afford because of the high prices of wheat flour and cooking oil. The cost of living is so high," she lamented.

Snack vendors also have begun feeling the heat of low purchasing power among consumers.

"We make doughnuts and supply them to shops, but for the past two weeks our customers have reported that the sales are low because of the size of doughnuts,” said Mark Otieno, who operates a doughnut outlet in Bondo, Siaya County.

“We have not increased the price but I must admit the size has reduced a bit in order to compensate for the doubled cooking oil price."