Food safety officials pick up sweet samples from a mithai shop in the city on Thursday.
Chennai: Come
Deepavali and its time for laddoos and jelebis in most homes. But a
sweet treat may send you to the doctor if you are not careful.
Food
safety officials, who are keeping a strict watch on the quality of
sweets and savouries being prepared for Deepavali at various foodstalls
in the city, warn that adulterants and poor quality oil are often used
to cut down costs.
On Thursday some of the 25 officials
conducting raids on sweet stalls, took six samples of wheat halwa,
badhusha and milk sweets from shops in Aminjikarai and inspected their
manufacturing units on a complaint from an insurance agent, G.
Marimuthu, who claimed the sweets he bought from a shop, Parvathi
Bhavan in Aminjikarai on the occasion of Ayudha pooja had made his
friends sick.
Food safety official Lakshmi Naryanan says that
based on the agent’s complaint, samples of sweets were taken from the
shop for testing.
“ We have also asked our officials to inspect
other sweet stalls which have started Deepavali sales,” he added,
revealing that the department intended to circulate handbills among the
public to create awareness about possible adulteration of sweets.
“Consumers
need to be alert when buying sweets as many shops use poor quality oil
or vanaspati to prepare the so-called ghee sweets. The shelf life of
these sweets is very little,” he warned, explaining that that several
harmful colouring agents were also sometimes used to prepare the
sweets.
Food safety officials who receive complaints on the
helpline, 9842156266, have conducted some 15 inspections every month
this year, seizing among other things, huge quantities of adulterants
of tea dust and substandard water packets.
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