FSDA launches drive against adulterated sweets in festive season

Agra: With the festive season in progress, cases of adulteration of food items are increasing. Keeping this in mind, the Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) Agra is taking action against adulterers and is conducting regular food checking and testing at different places around the city.

The department after receiving information about adulteration in milk, spices, tomato sauce and paneer, has seized 40 sacks of powder used in making sweets. Shops were found offering sweets and petha with aluminum foil dressing in place of silver foil. In the name of pistachio sweets, groundnut flakes excessively coloured with hazardouse green food pigment was being used, officials alleged.

"On Monday two petha samples collected along NH-2 from two locations were found unsafe. One sample had aluminium dressing in place of silver, while another had excessive synthetic food colouring (288 parts per million). The shops belonged to Roopkishore Agarwal and Santosh Singh," said Ram Naresh Yadav, designated officer, FSDA Agra. "Sweet samples from Shri Ram Traders, Peepal Mandi, collected on Sunday, were found to have aluminium foil dressing foil dressing and coloured groundnut flakes in place of pistachio. The samples collected will be tested at our laboratory and further action will be taken based on report findings," Yadav added.

The FSDA official explained that the law allows silver to be used in its edible form on sweets for decoration, but use of aluminium is not allowed as it can lead to serious health hazards. As per the food safety norms, colours up to 100 parts per million, a way of expressing very diluted concentrations of substances, are allowed in food items, beyond which they are harmful to humans.

Adulteration causes serious risk to health. Presence of harmful starch, urea-mixed milk, caustic soda, artificial sweetening chemicals, non-approved colored sweets and unhygienic cooking conditions lead to acute gastritis, serious diarrhoea, dysentery, dehydration and kidney inflammation among others, officials pointed out.

"On a complaint of adulterated sweet-making powder brand, two men had been arrested for copyright violation. A joint team of local police and FSDA seized 40 sacks of sweet-making powders. Samples collected are being sent for laboratory testing," FSDA officials added.