Govt to launch drive against food adulteration in city

Like in previous years, the State food & drug administration (FDA) has launched a special drive to check adulteration in food items.
It may be recalled that last year, the department had booked 25 hotels and shops in Raipur, Bilaspur and Mahasumund districts for selling adulterated food materials. The errant hotel and shop owners had to pay `7.70 lakh as fine.
Officials of food safety department said that out of 25 cases that had to face legal action 17 were from Bilaspur, nine from Raipur and two from Mahasamund district. The district magistrates had imposed fine on the owners of hotel and shops ranging from `2,000 to `2 lakh.
The officials further informed that food safety and standard Act 2006 have been put into effect from August 2011.
Acting under this Act the FDA has been checking food materials available in shops and hotels throughout the State. An officer said the action is also being taken against people found responsible for the adulteration or selling sub-standard food.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration department on Saturday took samples of food items from two sweet shops in railway station area. So far the department has taken samples from about eight shops and whose report would be made known within 15 days.
A team of food & drug administration took samples from Milan Sweets station road and Raj Sweets near Smart Talkies.
An officer heading the team informed that hotels near bus stand and railway station are mostly found indulged in adulteration as the businessman from other places try to sell duplicate kova in these shops.
The department was receiving complaints of selling of adulterate khova for past many days, the officer added.

Bitter sweets, traders loot consumers: CPO

JAMMU: A meeting of executive members of the Consumer Protection Organisation  (CPO) was held on Sunday under its President D.R Danish in which the participants  brought to fore the exorbitant rates being charged by the shopkeepers at Jammu.

It was disclosed in the meeting that the organisation had decided the whole sale rates of Fenis and Katlammas at Rs 46 and Rs 55 per Kg respectively as confirmed by the organisation from Distt Samba and Distt Kathua whereas the retail price of the said items is Rs. 140 and Rs 150 Per Kg of FENIS and Katlammas (Vanspati) respectively in Jammu and adjoining areas.

The following points need immediate attention of Municipal Corporation Jammu/Srinagar, Municipalities, Town Area Committees, Legal Metrology, CAPD and Police Department on the festival season. Sweet shop owners sell their products underweight, weigh the cartons/ containers with sweets and provide adulterated and over dated stale items. They include the weight of containers in the net weight which is not legal. The quantity of sweets as well as dry fruits packed in containers should have their net weights mentioned on the containers. They should display the rates for Desi Ghee and Vanaspati made sweets separately. CPO urged the authorities to ensure a profit of not more than 20  per cent for the retailers on Fenis and Katlamas.

CPO demands that the defaulters who loot the consumers should be booked and awarded exemplary penalties under Public Safety Act and Food Safety Standard Act. They also demanded that their names should be published in the leading local news papers to aware public.

Don't let spurious sweets turn your festivity sour

ALLAHABAD: The festive season keeps markets buzzing with hectic shopping activity and it's also the biggest time to buy sweets. With a major increase in demand of sweets in the city, there is also a glut of adulterated ingredients that go into their making.
Sweets are prepared in bulk and some times weeks in advance to be sold around Dussehra and Diwali. To cope up with the demand, oil and khoya (reduced dry milk), used for preparing these sweets, is highly adulterated with the poisonous aregemone mexicana and a deadly butter-yellow dye which is added to the oil. A non-edible bi-product of crude palm oil, stearin is used in adulteration of Vanaspati. It is used mostly to manufacture soaps. Khoya is prepared by mashing blotting paper and toilet paper in milk and synthetic khoya is prepared adding urea. "Likewise, semolina is another important ingredient used in making synthetic milk and don't get surprised to know that milkcake, for which you pay around Rs 250 per kilo, often contains no milk at all," said a shopkeeper of the city.
So as a customer how can you really ensure that the peda or burfi you buy is pure? "You can tell generally from the colour or the mava used. Buy only from a reliable shop and understand that cheaper sweets are being made with cheaper products," said Suresh another sweet shop owner of the city.
"We should buy sweets only from reliable places," says a customer. The trick is to purchase sweets from a reputed shop or buy ones that are less colourful. It is also important to keep in mind that the product should be sampled to ensure it isn't made of inferior quality oil or vanaspati.
Normally, it the khoya which is used most and there is a bigger chance of that being adulterated. Refined palm stearin, a non-edible by-product of crude palm oil, is used as an adulterant in vanaspati. Stearin is used largely to manufacture soaps. We should buy khoya and other sweets only from genuine places, says a customer.
As difficult as it is for us to detect something amiss the administration is not taking any chances with a special task force instituted during festivals to keep a tab on quality of milk and sweets. With authorities gearing up to crackdown on mithai shops using stale ingredients, this Diwali, before you bite into that alluring assortment of sweets, make sure it is all fresh. But with the festival just a few days away, those in the business of making quick money are also active in the city and so is the department of food safety and drug administration which has chalked out an elaborate plan for intensifying the crackdown against those in the business of adulteration.
Talking about the department's plan, food safety officer Sailesh Dixit told TOI, "Keeping track of the eight tehsils in the district, we have six sectors each with one food safety officer who would be responsible for keeping a tab on adulteration. Any complaint related to quality of food would be taken action against. Any trader found resorting to such means of adulterations would be taken to task as the department has enhanced its vigilance in view of the festive season. Check is not only against milk products...we are vigil against any sort of adulteration be it in food items or spices."
Adulteration is not new to officials and now even common people are getting more aware as what he was couple of years ago, said head of the department of Gastroentrology MLN Medical College, Prof Manisha Dwivedi. Metanil yellow dye which is another non-permissible toxic colorant, is used mostly to color besan (gram flour), pulses, miscellaneous prepared foods including sweetmeats like laddoo, barfi, jalebi, dalmoth, papad, etc. for an attractive deep yellow color, informed Prof Jagdamba Singh of the department of Chemistry, Allahabad University.
Food grade colors are available in the market but since they are costly, traders take advantage of the lackadaisical approach of the law enforcing authorities and substitute it with cheap and non-permissible dyes and colors, he added.

Test before you taste milk and khoya

ALLAHABAD: The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) department is poised to educate and spread awareness among masses regarding purity of food and milk products during festivals like the forthcoming Diwali and on the other hand, an instant kit to determine purity of milk has become popular in KAVAL cities. An instant impurity detection kit is helping consumers in various cities check adulteration in 'khoya' and sweets. These kits are helpful and quick compared to laboratory tests which take days to confirm if sample is adulterated.
Food safety officials are promoting consumers to use the kits or other time-tested methods to detect on the spot if the khoya or mithai has impurities. But, since these kits use solutions such as tincture of iodine and sulphuric acid, other traditional methods are also being employed.
"A few drops of tincture of iodine can test the quality of khoya. If it turns bluish, it is adulterated. Sulphuric acid also rule out adulteration," said an official.Adulteration causes serious risk to human health. Presence of harmful starch, urea mixed milk, caustic soda, 'ararot', artificial sweetening chemicals, non-approved colored sweets (like heavy metals incorporated malachite green, etc) and unhygienic conditions lead to acute gastritis, serious diarrhoea, dysentery, dehydration, kidney inflammation, etc.
Apart from constituting teams for conducting raids on specific locations, the department has also planned to set up a helpline to provide information and teach methods to detect adulteration in food products. Chief Food Safety Officer, HK Srivastava told TOI "We are ready to apprise people about the benefits of home remedies to detect adulteration in food products. Besides, there is a plan in place to conduct surprise raids at sweet shops, godowns and manufacturing units from where samples will be collected and sent to the Public Analysis Lab, Lucknow and Regional Public Analysis, Varanasi for tests.
The state government had formed FDA (Food & Drug Administration) to check cases of adulteration but public participation and coordination is must to eradicate the menace. "Everyone should be alert while purchasing food and milk products and he or she should also be aware of the homely tips to check adulteration," said Srivastava. He added that public awareness was must to deal with the situation and people should come forward to know simple measures/techniques to detect adulteration. A team of 12 food inspectors are working round-the-clock to detect cases of adulteration in the district.
If anyone wants to complain against food/milk adulterated product, he or she may contact office of the FDA and food inspectors would help them out.
FDA officials have launched a special drive to apprise people about simple measures to detect adulteration at home or take professional assistance if required. The officials of FDA are also gearing up to initiate actions under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (1954) against errant shop owners. "Public generally is not optimally aware about adulteration and the ways in which items of consumption are laced with harmful additives, either to enhance its shelf-life or to give it more volume," said an official.