Costs keep people away from checking food quality

Of 800 cases handled by BBMP lab, only 15 came from citizens

Though the menace of food adulteration appears to have increased in the recent past, lack of awareness and prohibitive costs for testing seems to be keeping Bangaloreans away from getting their suspicious food products analysed in laboratories.
Sample this. If the food testing laboratory in Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) handled around 800 cases last year, only about 15 cases were brought to it directly by the citizens while the rest came through its officials. Further, enquiries with some leading private laboratories revealed that they received fewer cases in a whole of last year.
This comes even as food products such as chilli powder, spices, ghee, butter, honey, flour, coffee and tea powder, beverages and chocolates among many others, being adulterated by unscrupulous traders and companies.
“Consumers are not even aware of what tests should be conducted since a range of chemical tests are on the offer and each of the tests are expensive. In fact, they do not even know what to look for in food products when they are suspecting that they have got an adulterated product,” said Deepa Vishwanathan, chief executive officer of Pristine Laboratories, a certified AGMARK Lab in the City. According to her, they receive about 4 or 5 cases in a year.
“Most of those tests conducted are prescriptive analysis that the companies come forward to before the product is made available in the market. However, investigative analysis that can come afterwards are very few,” she said.
If nutritional analysis is cumbersome and has a wide range of tests, pesticidal analysis is expensive while microbial and water analysis are for cooked food. The cost of these tests range from Rs. 80 to Rs. 10,000, and some times even more.
“The process at BBMP is a little cumbersome. Either you have to pay Rs. 300 along with the sample for testing or give a written complaint to the Chief Health Officer following which food inspectors would be sent and samples collected,” a source in BBMP said and added that generally people do not come voluntarily with a complaint. “Things could change when the provisions of Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 will be implemented.”
Acknowledging that the awareness about food safety is poor, K.J. Balasubramani, assistant director of Shriram Institute for Industrial Reseach, a NABL accredited laboratory, said that there is an urgent need to create awareness on food safety. “On an average we get about 2 cases a month. Government should take the lead in creating the awareness.”

FSSAI frames strategy for harmonising Indian food standards with Codex

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country's apex food regulator, has formulated a strategy – comprising four annexures – to take up the task of harmonising India's food standards with those laid down by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, established by the United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Sanjay Dave, chairman, Codex Alimentarius Commission – who is also the advisor to FSSAI – said, “The objective of the FSSAI, which aims at food safety as a nationwide movement, is to lay down science-based standards for food articles and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import to ensure the availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption.”

“To meet this objective, FSSAI must follow an inclusive approach by utilising the wisdom of all stakeholders in the country and discuss all relevant issues through a transparent process of consultation and iron out all conflicting opinions on the basis of scientific evidence. One of the immediate tasks in hand is to review the food safety standards situation in the country,” he stated.

Many standards in the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011, have been drawn from the provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. However, there is a demand for the review of these standards, taking into account the latest developments in food science across the globe, food consumption pattern, new specifications, the presence of new contaminants and toxins and the use of new food additives and ingredients required by food producers.

“We also need to consider the development of new standards and texts wherever necessary while taking cognisance of the developments in an environment of open market in India. Needless to say that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) encourages harmonisation of the national standards, guidelines and best practices with those of the Codex and provide an equal opportunity to all stakeholders in the food business,” Dave said.

Annexure-I is the strategy paper for harmonisation. Being a huge task, it requires the participation of all experts in the fields of food regulatory affairs, scientific research, food and nutrition, food technology, policy or academia. They must be identified on the basis of their interest in contributing and experience in the subject matter as they would utilise the available scientific and regulatory information for the expected outcome.

To facilitate the process, it is necessary to identify the current areas and volumes of work involved and explain the strategy, scope of work, guidelines for working groups, timelines, format and procedure for forwarding nominations, selection criteria, etc. Detailed documents have been prepared and shown as icons in Annexure-II, titled Guidance Document on Vertical Standards. These icons are numbered as Attachments 1-12.

FSSAI recommends that those who wish to participate in the process of harmonisation study Annexure-III (Guidance to the Nominees), which explains their contribution to the process. This would enable them to decide what role they would like to play in the country's food standards development process. They should fill the nomination form (Annexure-IV) and forward the same to FSSAI via e-mail (fssaiharmonisation@gmail.com) by March 20, 2013.

Delhiites love street food over health, reveals study

A majority of people surveyed said they consume street food despite being aware of its ill effects.

Few can tide over love to see the flaws. That explains Delhi's bond with its street food . It's not easy to hold back when your taste buds crave for some chatpate chhole bhathure, crispy kachouris or steamy momos. The burnt oil or adulterated spices that go into in their making are hardly a put off or so has a research team at Institute of Home Economics (IHE) found.

As part of a study - Ensuring Access to Safe Street Food - the research team, including faculty and students of the institute, surveyed 500 consumers and 250 street food vendors across the city.

The consumers were mostly university students aged between 18 and 23, for whom street food meant a yummy meal with friends at low costs. Around 74 per cent of them gorged on street food simply for its unmatched taste. A little over half of them admitted to have fallen ill after consuming street food and around 43 per cent of the students who were surveyed said they had to take medication to get better, but despite that they did not lose their appetite for roadside delights.

Matter of choice

A majority of respondents (62.8 per cent) reported that they were aware of adulterated ingredients and food-borne diseases, though 56 per cent consumers said they did not know about the source of contamination. A majority of them agreed that they ate street food for its taste while 42 per cent were simply floored with the variety on offer by the road.

"We found a lot of adulteration when we tested the food samples collected from vendors from different parts of the city. Even the oil samples tested were rancid," said Dr Parveen Pannu, principal investigator of the project and associate professor, department of communication and extension at IHE. She further said, "At many locations we found that vendors kept a bucket of water as the only source for preparing food.""And they also washed their hands with that water many times during the day," said.

Pannu, who started surveying the street foodies and vendors last June along with Dr Sunita Aggarwal, associate professor from department of microbiology and Deepshikha Kataria, who is an assistant professor from the department of food and nutrition.

The collection and testing of samples continued till this January for the project sponsored by Delhi University. The team laid its hands on all possible snacks popular among college students, including samosa, tikki, bread pakora, kachori, moong dal laddoo, chowmein, momos, fried rice, bhallepapri, bhelpuri, chhole bhature, pao bhaji, chhole kulche, rajma chawal and beverages such as lemonade.

Out of 10 fat samples tested, eight were found to have high acid value. All 10 oil samples had high peroxide value. Pannu said peroxides and free fatty acids can form free radicals in the body causing ill effects on health.

"The aim of our project was not to suggest that people should stop eating street food. Many of these vendors are illiterate and do not understand the concept of hygiene and food safety. They need to be made aware," said Pannu. For the purpose of the survey, the city was divided into five zones - north, south, east, west, central - and consumers and vendors were asked if they followed any hygiene standards.

The regulation

To make sure foodies do not end up sick, the government enforced the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act 2006 on August 5, 2011 across the country. According to the new rules, every food business with an annual turnover below Rs.12 lakh will have to register with the state health department. Those earning more will need a licence to operate.

A penalty of up to Rs.10 lakh can be imposed for sale of unhygienic and adulterated food. The penalty earlier was anything between Rs.500 and Rs.5,000.

There are nearly 60,000 to 80,000 street food vendors in the city, according to the National Association of Street Food Vendors of India (NASVI).

However, the process of their registration hasn't yet begun.

"We need proper infrastructure to initiate such a huge task. Our only office at Lawrence Road is not adequate for the purpose. We are planning to open offices in different zones to carry out the registration process area-wise. It will take at least two more months," said a senior government official.

Questions About Meat Content in Ireland Causing International Scare

From coast to coast in the United States, questions are beginning to rise from both the meat and non-meat eating communities in light of recent events in Ireland. And whether a person is vegetarian, vegan or a meat eater, the recent Irish horsemeat scandal has raised questions abroad about the content of the beef people consume these days. A recent article posted on BeWellBuzz.com addresses this international meat crisis and discovers several startling truths about the actual meat being consumed by millions of unsuspecting consumers.
A January 2013 probe launched by the Food Authority of Ireland analyzed 27 hamburgers and the meat content which each contained. What they found was distressing – 10 out of the 27 hamburgers had the presence of horse DNA. To make matters worse, 23 were found to have traces of pig DNA as well. This alarming discovery proved that the concerns of many meat consumers across the planet have questioned for years – what exactly is in the meat they eat each day?
The scandal in Ireland spread to its neighbor in the United Kingdom Britain; when the largest grocery chain in the United Kingdom conducted similar testing for their ‘beef’ products. They discovered that nearly 29% of all the ground ‘beef’ in the test sample contained large traces of Horse meat instead of the certified beef which providers had claimed it has contained for year.
The ripples of the horse meat scandal have spread to other European countries as well including Sweden; where the Food Standards Agency in Britain declared that Swedish food company Findus’ contained nearly 60% horse meat in their meat lasagna products. Included in testing were the countries of France, Germany and the Netherlands. This raises the question about potential horse meat concerns in the United States; especially in light of recent discovery of horse meat being found in several Nestlé food products.
“Nestlé U.S.A. does not use meat sourced from Europe,” a company statement said in a press release. “Additionally, U.S.D.A. meat inspectors are in all processing plants and also have responsibility to oversee any imported meat. We have also requested and received confirmation from all our meat suppliers that they do not provide Nestlé U.S.A. with any meat from the affected countries and companies.”
According to Nestlé U.S.A. the company uses beef from the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, the company spokesperson stated. As the debate lingers and consumers question the actual content of alleged ‘beef’ consumed across the globe, more questions remained asked with limited answers being provided. To learn more about this growing story, and to read more cases of horse meat discoveries as found and printed by Health and Wellness portal BeWellBuzz.com, please click the link to the article posted below.