Food safety teams deployed to visit hotels

The Commissioner of Food Safety has engaged a team in every district, including the representatives of the District Collector, the District Medical Officer, and the Food Safety Officer, to revisit those eateries and hotels which claimed to have complied with the 30-point guidelines for food safety and standards, issued by the Commissioner.

The squads will revisit these eateries and hotels which had earlier been ordered to close during inspections by food safety officials for poor hygiene, to check if these were fit to be re-opened. The food safety officials had inspected 1,081 hotels/eateries across the State and had ordered 66 of these closed for not maintaining hygiene and food safety regulations. In Thiruvananthapuram, a squad led by District Food Safety Officer D. Sivakumar inspected the hotels while in Ernakulam, the inspections were led by a team led by Food Safety Officer K. Ajith Kumar.

Of the 10 eateries which were revisited by the officials on Tuesday, only three were found to be complying with all the guidelines. Officials had recommended to the Commissioner of Food Safety that three establishments — Hotel Lakshmi, General Hospital Junction, Thiruvananthapuram; Kudumbasree Canteen, Museum Compound, Thiruvananthapuram; and Cochin Tourist Home, Nalanda Restaurant, at Ernakulam; be allowed to be reopened. Two establishments were ordered to be closed by officials in inspections held in the capital city on the day. These are Salkaram restaurant (inside Ananthapuri auditorium), Jagathy, and Hotel Amaravathi, Pulimoodu.

Meet on food safety ahead of festivals

A high-level meeting will be held here to discuss and decide on steps to counter food adulteration and sale of stale food and meat products during the Onam and Ramzan period.
Ten ministers would attend the meeting called by the health department on August 13. Health minister V.S. Sivakumar’s office said the authorities would draw up a foolproof plan after the high-level meeting to check food adulteration.
The meeting will be attended by ministers of finance, tourism, health, local self government, animal husbandry, fisheries and agriculture.
“The meeting will review the current scenario and decide on the steps to check adulteration in food items. Screening of hotels alone will not help. We should check the quality of the items used for
cooking,” the minister’s office said.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to grade hotels and restaurants. As part of this, the health department has asked officials to make a list of the hotels, restaurants and thattukadas.

It’s time to say adieu to sodexo coupons

The Chief Food Safety officer, who had ordered closure of a restaurant in Technopark citing poor hygiene, was more than surprised when he visited the hotel again on Tuesday to review the situation. Hiding the notice of the Food Safety Commissioner, the authorities of the Kalpaka sea food restaurant had placed another notice stating that the hotel was closed down for maintenance and would be opened on Wednesday.
“We have again ordered them to close down the hotel until they meet the standards set by the Food Safety Authority,” said Chief Food Safety Officer D Sivakumar.
The Food Safety Authority had served notices to more than 10 food outlets in Technopark in an inspection conducted three days ago owing to poor sanitation facilities.
Techies, who depends a lot on fast and junk foods, are a worried lot. In the wake of recent controversies related to the ‘shawarma’ incident, more techies are opting for homely food.
Recently, employees of the IBS Software Services Private Limited had a strange experience from a food outlet in Technopark. “We were served rotten chicken from Chicking in Technopark. We have filed a complaint before the Food Safety Commissioner through email. However, he hasn’t responded yet,” said Binoy, an employee of the IBS.
Not just the food joints in Technopark, hotels on Kazhakoottam area too have been served with notices for poor hygiene prompting the techies to opt for homely food services offered by nearby houses.
Some of the techies are regular visitors of nearby Punjabi Dhabas which serve healthy and tasty vegetarian foods. A good number of techies bring food from home too.
For techies, it is time to say good bye to sodexo coupons, at least for some time.

More stress on hygiene: BAKE

 

The Bakers’ Association, Kerala (BAKE) will cooperate with the authorities if periodic inspections are carried out at bakeries, association State president P.M. Shankaran has said.
Talking to The Hindu after presiding over BAKE’s district convention here on Wednesday, he said the focus of the association would be on ensuring cleanliness and hygiene during the entire manufacturing process.
Underscoring the need to return to traditional food habits, he said BAKE had launched a major awareness campaign among its members on the need to maintain quality through hygiene.
“Quality and hygiene cannot be ensured unless there is a dedicated effort,” he said.
BAKE would also insist on implementing the 14-digit number licence as stipulated by the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India Act.
BAKE members had been taking adequate steps to ensure cleanliness. Harassment of members in the guise of inspection by authorities would not be allowed, he said.
The variety of products shutting down of local baking units would usher in branded and high-cost multi-national food companies. This would harm the interests of indigenous food manufacturers, he said. People should renounce the ‘unhealthy, fast-food culture,’ he said adding that BAKE had been on a ‘mission’ to do away with ‘coloured baked items’ and other artificial ingredients.

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People urged to return to traditional food habits

Plea to promote indigenous food manufacturers

Hotels and eateries in Kerala lack freezers

The recent raids on hotels and eateries in Kerala by the food safety authorities and the corporation health squad have revealed that only less than 10 per cent of the hotels and eateries had proper freezer facilities. Further, only a very few hotels stick to the stipulation that the freezer should be turned under –18 degree Celsius.

This fact was exposed during a debate on “Hygienic Food Right of The Citizen,” organised by the corporation recently.

B. Sasi Kumar, health inspector of the corporation said that many hotels, irrespective of their class, lack proper waste disposal facilities.

“We found that only less than five per cent hotels have covered bins to collect waste, which is mandatory,” he said in a report by Deccan Chronicle.

Refuting the claims of the representatives of Kerala Hotel and Restaurants Association (KHRA) that only the Commissionerate of Food Safety officials have the right to raid hotels, Sasi Kumar said, “Under the Kerala Municipal Act, the D&O trade licence is issued to hotels by the local bodies and the relevant rules under it empower local bodies to conduct inspections in eateries”.

Rather than discussing the measures to be taken to ensure hygiene and quality food, the debate mainly cantered on who the responsible authority to conduct the raids, was.

Earlier, inaugurating the debate at the Ernakulam Town Hall, district sessions judge P. Mohandas said that in food adulteration cases, the big manufacturers always go scot free while the small traders get trapped.

The corporation conducted the debate against the background of the recent raids on hotels and the reports on poor quality food being served.

“What’s needed to tackle the issue is a concerted effort, rather than a mere enforcement of law. All recommendations that come out of such healthy debates will help in streamlining the hotel industry,” said Mayor Tony Chammany.

T.K. Ashraf, health standing committee chairman introduced the topic. Advocate Jayasankar who led the debate remarked that a major factor contributing to the issue is the public’s lack of awareness about health issues and society’s changing food habits.

Jose Mohan of KHRA demanded that the raids be conducted in compliance with the FSS (Food Safety and Standards) Act and hotels should not be closed down without giving them a notice period to rectify their shortcomings.

Arsenic eyes rice nutrients

The heavy metal can disrupt amino acid synthesis in the grain 


ARSENIC accumulation in rice is something that is largely unexplored. A study has now found that the heavy metal can disrupt amino acid synthesis in the grain, a staple diet for many. This can reduce the levels of essential and non-essential amino acids found mainly in rice which are essential for a healthy life.
Essential amino acids like lysine, phenylealanine, histidine and methionine not only improve digestion, stimulate hormonal release and enhance memory, they are also the building blocks of all proteins. Deficiency of glutamic acid, a non-essential amino acid, has been linked to Parkinson’s disease.
For the study, researchers from India and the UK analysed arsenic and amino acid contents in 16 rice genotypes grown in arsenic-contaminated soils in West Bengal. They chose three regions—Chinsurah in Hooghly district, Purbosthali in Bardhaman district and Birnagar in Nadia district. They found that the levels of arsenic in groundwater of the three sites were 17, 27 and 53 microgramme/litre (mg/l) respectively. The concentrations of arsenic in soil varied from 10.4 mg/l in Chinsurah to 12.6 mg/l in Purbosthali and 15.5 mg/l in Birnagar. The acceptable limit for arsenic in groundwater, according to WHO, is 50 mg/l and the permissible limit of soil arsenic as set by the European Union is 20 mg/kg soil.
The rice genotypes were then divided into two categories based on the arsenic accumulation behaviour—low arsenic accumulating rice genotypes (LAARGs) and high arsenic accumulating rice genotypes (HAARGs).
The researchers found that the levels of essential and non-essential amino acid differed significantly in HAARGs and LAARGs. In most of the genotypes the levels of amino acids reduced significantly as the arsenic concentration rose. The researchers say this is due to the heavy metal altering the degradation of the proteins and subsequently leading to inhibition of amino acid synthesis. The levels of essential and non-essential amino acids in rice were the highest in Chinsurah.
They also found rice varieties that resisted arsenic accumulation in areas with high levels of the heavy metal in soil and vice-versa. The study will be published in the October 1 issue of Environment International.
The findings can act as a guide to identifying rice varieties suitable for growing so that the grain has minimum arsenic concentration and highest levels of required amino acids, says Rudro Deo Tripathi, scientist at National Botanical Research Institute.

Junking the myth

Fast food from cafeteria worse than food which is simply oily 

A COMMON argument of proponents of fast food is that such products are not very different from oily food made at home. But scientists at University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health in the US say eating oil-laden home made French fries and burgers is not the same as gobbling up the same food at your favourite fast food joint.
They studied the immune responses in rats to three types of diets—control diets, a lard-based high-fat diet and a cafeteria junk-food diet consisting of nutrient-poor snacks, such as salami, chocolate, cookies and chips. They found that a diet based on cafeteria junk food could lead to more obesity-induced inflammation (tenderness and swelling of fatty tissues) than a diet high in saturated fat.
The reason for this is that besides saturated fat, cafeteria diet contains saturated fat, trans-fats, sodium and cholesterol all of which are associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Cafeteria food alters metabolites produced during the conversion of food to energy. One of these is metabolite lauroyl carnitine which could be responsible for obesity-induced inflammation and increased insulin resistance.
The researches suggest that cafetaria food should be used for modelling studies on obesity as they have more adverse effects. “Cafeteria diet is highly palatable—salty, fatty, sweet and has variety,” says Liza Makowski of the Gillings School, who led the study.
“It is well known that obesity causes inflammation that leads to diabetes, and this study has provided us with additional chemical clues or biomarkers that actually cause inflammation we can now study in human populations to better understand obesity and diabetes risk,” adds Makowski.
In India, too, the trend of eating out has been gaining popularity in the past few years. According to RNCOS, a marketing research firm based in Delhi, Indian fast food industry is expected to grow at a rate of 34 per cent during 2011-14. “While eating out with friends in a fast food outlet, we do not actually realise how much we are eating,” says Rekha Sharma, former chief dietician at All India Institute of Medical Sciences and director of Diabetes Foundation of India, a non-profit based in Delhi.
As a result, over the years, increase in cases of obesity and diabetes has been observed in India, too. According to the International Diabetes Federation, India was home to 61.3 million of total 71.4 million diabetes patients in Southeast Asia in 2011. An estimate by the National Family Health Survey in 2005-06 showed that 14.8 per cent women and 12.1 per cent men were either obese or overweight in the country.

Gutkha sympathiser

For long, Centre remained silent over whether states can ban the chewing tobacco

Photo: Sayantoni Palchoudhuri
IN A span of four months, nine states have announced a ban on gutkha, a chewing tobacco that is responsible for 80 per cent of oral cancer cases in the country. The latest in the league are Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Haryana that announced the ban in mid-July.
A Central government regulation that bans tobacco and nicotine laced food products has been in place for almost a year. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a statutory body under the Union health ministry, had issued the regulations on August 5, 2011. But it took the states around eight months to get clarity whether they can ban gutkha as per the Food Safety and Standards regulation.
Several documents and communications with FSSAI officials show that till recently neither the health ministry nor FSSAI took a firm stand on whether gutkha is a food or a tobacco product. Additional secretary in the health ministry, Keshav Desiraju, sent letters to all states recommending the ban only on April 25, 2012, after Madhya Pradesh went ahead on its own and banned the sale and storage of gutkha on April 1.
After the ban by Madhya Pradesh, states moved swiftly to impose the ban, which has left the smokeless tobacco industry in a tizzy. They are now dragging states to courts, calling the ban illegal. In Madhya Pradesh, the industry has filed three court cases against the state government challenging the ban. Four court cases were filed in Kerala and one in Bihar.

After two failed attempts to ban gutkha, first in 2002 and then in 2007, Maharashtra is treading cautiously. The state government has also invoked Section 30 of the Food Safety and Standard Act (FSSA) of 2006, which gives powers to states to ban any food product for a year in public interest. Along with chewing tobacco products, it banned paan masala, which does not contain tobacco but has an equally harmful chemical—magnesium carbonate. Just before announcing the ban, it also filed a caveat in the Bombay High Court on July 20 explaining why it is banning the product. The caveat will not allow the industry to seek a stay on the ban without giving opportunity to the government to present its case. The ban on gutkha and paan masala in Maharashtra alone will result in loss of revenue of around Rs 100 crore (about US $17.8 million) per year. According to the Planning Commission, the revenue from tobacco products annually is around US $1.62 billion.
Not surprisingly, the Centre has been reluctant to lose so much money.
Long-run reluctance
On August 5, soon after FSSAI issued the notification, Arun Prasad, then joint secretary in the Union health ministry, had told this correspondent that gutkha cannot be banned as it is a means of livelihood for millions of people. It can only be “regulated” under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (prohibition of advertisement and regulation of trade and commerce, production, supply and distribution) Act (COTPA) of 2003, he had said.
On March 16 this year, FSSAI director (administration), Asim Chaudhary, had told Down To Earth that FSSAI is not clear if the regulation is applicable to gutkha. “The matter is in court,” Chaudhary had said.
On May 4, during the Lok Sabha question hour, members of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party had urged the Centre to take cue from Madhya Pradesh and ban gutkha. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that he alone cannot take a decision on banning gutkha; he would have to consult the Union finance ministry.
Sources say that gutkha industry’s interference is the reason for the Centre’s delayed recommendation and some states’ inaction to ban gutkha. It is rumoured that the assembly elections in Assam last year were fought on donations from the gutkha industry. A Noida-based chewing tobacco products manufacturer, has a factory in the state. Another reason for the lack of will on part of the government to ban gutka could be investments made by public sector companies in the gutkha manufacturing companies (see ‘LIC’s unhealthy choice’,).
The Union health ministry took its first official stand on the matter in an affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court in December 2011 in response to a case filed by the Dharampal Satyapal (DS) Group, challenging the new FSS regulations. The affidavit notes that FSSA definitions of food, ingredients, additives include products like paan masala and gutkha.
Industry hides under tobacco law
The industry calls the ban illegal, saying that COTPA is a special Act and FSSA is a general Act. So, despite FSSA being enacted in 2006, three years after COTPA, the latter does not stand repealed. “A special Act always comes above the general Act. When FSSA came into force, COTPA was not repealed. So gutkha is still regulated under COTPA,” says Sanjay Bechen, executive director of Smokeless Tobacco Federation, an association of smokeless tobacco producing companies in the country.
The federation is in possession of a RTI reply from FSSAI, dated June 29, 2012. The applicant had asked the food regulatory body whether gutkha is a tobacco or a food product and if it comes under FSSA or COTPA. The reply notes, “As per the extant Food Safety and Standards Act and regulation, gutkha has not been defined as food”. This shows the double standards adopted by FSSAI, says Bechen. “In court they say something else, and in the RTI response, they agree gutkha is not food.”
FSSAI chairperson K Chandramouli, however, clarifies that “FSSAI’s stand is clear. Gutkha is a food product. Now it is up to the states to implement it and enforce the ban.” The RTI reply may be specific to the questions asked, he adds.
In the affidavit submitted in the Delhi High Court, the Union health ministry notes that section 89 of FSSA overrides all other legislation, including COTPA. It adds that FSSA is also a special Act as it regulates laws related to food and food safety. The government also slams the smokeless tobacco producing companies’ claim that gutkha should be regulated under COTPA as it is taxed as a tobacco product. “Their payment of taxes has no bearing on the quality of the gutkha,” the affidavit notes.
The Union government has, meanwhile, sought the transfer of the DS Group case to the Supreme Court, saying the apex court is already hearing a case on the issue filed by the Central Arecanut Marketing Cooperative. On August 3 the Supreme Court will decide whether it will admit the DS Group case. If it admits the case, all ongoing cases against the states’ ban on gutka will have to wait for the apex court’s order.
Even if the apex court orders in favour of a ban, officials say the ban by a countable number of states will remain ineffective because of porous borders. Gutkha is still available in states that have banned the product, though they are not openly displayed in kiosks. To make a ban on gutkha foolproof, doctors and cancer patients’ associations in states like Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are mounting pressure on governments. In Uttar Pradesh, the Indian Dental Association has filed a public interest petition in the Allahabad High Court, asking the government why it is reluctant to ban chewing tobacco products. Uttar Pradesh increased VAT on tobacco from 12.5 per cent to 50 per cent on June 30. The Madhya Pradesh government has also urged Uttar Pradesh to ban gutkha to make its ban effective.

Cereal Offenders

Doctors, stunned by the increase in patients with gastro or digestive-system linked cancers, are suggesting the need to do away with sugar—and breakfast cereals

Over the last few years, an amazing and visible change has taken place in India, and that has to do with the easy availability of such processed and manufactured foods as well as the ailments which follow, with digestive and gastro issues taking pole position.  Certainly, low sanitation has one part to play with this, especially the quality of water we drink. But more importantly, it is the rapid change in dietary habits in urban India which is a major change in the reasons behind medical issues, and only one of the areas where it is showing up in huge numbers is cancer.

For example—sweetened coloured carbonated soft drinks, were sold and available out of small cottage industries which had not learnt the art of adding more salt so that they could make you crave for another within a short time. And to counter all that salt, they then had to add more sugar. And since sugar was expensive, other chemicals masquerading as sweeteners have now been added. (Readers may be glad to observe that the number of celebrities endorsing soft drinks appears to have come down now, especially after Yuvraj Singh’s unfortunate episode with cancer. (Cancer Colas: Slowly being outcast by the West, Colas exploit India through unaccountable celebrity endorsements)

Or take another example—pre-packaged polished rice or refined flour was simply not available. Indian food simply didn’t taste the same with this base for a meal. Besides, everybody knew that the real nutrients as well as value came when you ate it without losing all the good parts. And the end products, bread or biscuit, were mostly made locally—from fresh ingredients sourced locally, too. Not loaded with garbage in the name of add-ons. (How does the wood in your bread, biscuit taste today?)

However, within the Indian context, even in the poorest of families, breakfast was the main building block of the day’s meal. Something which had to provide everybody with a reason to go, work, study or whatever. It was healthy, freshly cooked, and it was of prime importance that people knew what went into it.

A lot of that appears to have changed in the last decade or so. And one reason for it is the massive push being given to packaged breakfast cereals. Famously, it has been said more than once, including in the US Congress that the boxes they came in provided more nutrition than did the breakfast cereals themselves—and this was never contested or denied by the breakfast cereal industry. But, based heavily on advertising and marketing, the push for space on your table is huge. Simply put, the more they spend for the effort involved in getting breakfast cereals, the less you will get in terms of value.

This heavy push to try and change Indian breakfast eating habits does not come cheap, for anybody who knows what the cost of advertising is, or the charges levied for retail display space. After soft drinks, breakfast cereals are now the second highest marketed food products in India, and that is saying something for a category that simply did not exist here a decade ago. In the words of one advertising guru, the brief given was to make it a lifestyle product for children, with the power of pestering their parents. So, free toys, provocative advertising, and somehow connecting breakfast cereals to “family values” and “healthy lifestyles”, all this and more, made sure that you brought cereals home.

But what, then, is the link with cancer?

Doctors one speaks to are not very sure, but that old villain—excess sugar and salt—raises its head again. And why is there so much of it? Well, sugar provides the ‘bulk’ feeling and salt provides the taste, and the manufacturers have to provide something for the Indian palate—so up goes the sugar and the salt. In effect, when you are eating a bowlful of cereals, especially the so-called high fibre sorts, you are likely ingesting more salt than an equal weight of potato chips.

So where is the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India on breakfast cereals? As usual, nowhere, other than saying that they adhere to Indian standards. Which, actually, say nothing about the process to be used to make them in the first case, which is where the trouble starts. What sort of corn goes into making corn flakes sold in India, for example?

Even the crows don’t touch GM corn anymore...

Typically, when you manufacture a breakfast cereal, you are simply running the base grain through high temperatures, using a variety of processes to remove most of the natural nutrients, and then replacing them with artificial additives. This is done to (a) prevent the cereal from going rancid and (b) keeping the cereal crisp. The additives can include the mythical Vitamin D as well as our famous plant fibre, and of late, the new buzzword is Omega-3. The problem is, all these make the whole thing taste unpleasant, at least to children, so add more sugar.

Of course, after that you add milk and you guessed right—added more sugar.

So does this conclusively prove that breakfast cereals are now an additional possible cause for cancer?

The point is this we still don’t know what goes into breakfast cereals sold in India. And like there are people still denying that tobacco causes cancer, there are those who will sing the glories of breakfast cereals, so strong is the cereal lobby.

But if you ask the doctors, mostly over-worked and some absolutely stunned by the vast increase across all social and class levels of patients coming in with gastro or digestive system linked cancers, they are increasingly suggesting lifestyle changes need to do away with sugar. And breakfast cereals.

Breakfast cereals on their way to becoming serial offenders? It’s your life and it’s your money. Why do you want to spend it on cancer?

 With credit to Felicity Lawrence’s books, “Eat Your Heart Out” and “Not on the Label”. 

No food testing facility, results take a month

No food testing facility, results take a monthIn view of the forthcoming festive season, the health department has initiated a drive to collect food samples. However, the exercise is not likely to yield results. Reason: Gurgaon lacks a testing facility and the samples have been sent to a Chandigarh-based laboratory, from where the reports will arrive after a month. Every year, the health department initiates a drive to collect food samples.
In the last 15 days, 12 samples have been collected from sweets shops. But so far the department has not received any report on these.
The authorities are sending regular reminders to the Chandigarh-based centre to speed up the process so that residents don’t consume adulterated sweets. “We have been collecting samples from all sweets shops. Our role ends after the samples are sent to the laboratory for testing. We’ve been sending them reminders, but it takes time to prepare the reports,” said Dr Parveen Garg, chief medical officer. 
He further said, “We don’t have laboratories in Gurgaon where food samples can be tested. The samples have to be sent to Chandigarh.”
As per the Food Safety and Standard Act, a fine up to Rs. 5 lakh can be imposed on shopkeepers if a food item is found unfit for human consumption. There is also a provision of imprisonment up to three years.
Nearly 25 shopkeepers have been convicted for selling adulterated food items during the last two years in the district.
With implementation of the Food Safety Standards Act-2006, the authorities were hoping that reports of food samples would be declared within 14 days. CR Rana, commissioner, FDA, could not be reached for comment.

To comply or not? – Food Safety & Standards Act

The much needed draconian, almost impossible to believe, Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 is upon us. The harbinger of the arrival of multi brand retail which will put an end to hot bajjis and vadas from roadside tea shops and you cannot cook for your weddings and festivals without a license! Amazing is the way we have licensed ourselves to cook, eat, drink and celebrate. After a brief hesitation, we went ahead and filed the applications for our three Green Shops and Jenarsh, our honey packing unit. Except Coonoor, the other three places have been inspected by Food Safety Officers who have left a few queries. Important one is, we should not use the word “organic” as we have to get the products tested! One lifetime spent on organic, the certification business and Participatory Guarantee Systems! Our core value of promoting organic is under threat now, as we cannot do business without a FSS license. We are working along, crossing the hurdles as they come and looking for ways to comply with the regulations. Wish us good luck.