Abstract Studies were carried out to evaluate the levels of acrylamide in ten processed food products (cake, fried plantain chips, fried potato chips, beans cake, chin-chin, puff-puff, cheese-box, butter pie, bread and pop corn) sold in market outlets within Enugu metropolis using Liquid Chromatography and Tandem Mass Spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) analytical technique. The mean values of acrylamide in the investigated cake, fried plantain chips, fried potato chips, beans cake, chin chin puff-puff, cheese box, butter pie , bread and pop corn food samples were 305.20±31.21, 329.07±16.22, 476.23±24.11, 186.32±8.40, 232.19±16.30, 352.19±30.77, 56.70±4.05,104.19±10.51, 163.32±21.06 and 266.49±20.84µg/kg respectively.
The food samples contained mean levels of acrylamide in the following decreasing order; fried potato chips>fried puff puff > fried plantain chips> cake>pop corn> chin chin>beans cake> bread> butter pie> cheese box.
The levels of acrylamide in the studied food samples were statistically significant at p<0.05.
The benchmark set for acrylamide was exceeded in the investigated fried potato chips, fried plantain chips, fried puff puff and cake samples. The investigated food samples with very high mean values of acrylamide were predominantly processed through frying.
Keywords Acrylamide, Frying, Baking, Maillard reaction, Reducing sugar, Asparagines, Fried potato chips, Fried plantain chips, Cake, Beans cake, Pop corn, Fried puff puff, Chin chin, Butter pie, Bread and Cheese box.