2 years after Bihar tragedy, schools still flout midday meal rules: Study

The study found most children come to school on an empty stomach.

Nearly two years after the midday meal tragedy at a Bihar school where more than 20 children died after eating pesticidelaced lunch, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the scheme's implementation has revealed that food safety norms are still not followed in schools serving the noon meal.

There are no systems for buying and storing of raw material, those responsible for buying raw ingredients have no knowledge of quality parameters and possibilities of contamination still loom large.

That apart, the recent report also points out how most children come to school on an empty stomach and nearly 60 per cent suffered nutritional deficiencies.

The findings have emerged after a year-long project on a 'Comprehensive Investigation and Intervention in Mid-Day Meals' in two blocks of Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh.

Commissioned by the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development for creating templates for systemic improvements of the Midday Meal Scheme, the project was carried out by the Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute (SSMI), a Delhi-based non-profit institution.

The report emphasises the need for reinventing the midday meal according to local needs and ground realities, and calls for greater sympathy for the cookcum-helpers who prepare the meals in less than satisfactory conditions.

"If during the study in Faizabad, it is noticed that a large number of children are coming hungry, it is just common sense that a hungry child cannot pay attention to what is being taught, obviously the relationship between hungernutrition and cognition needs to be investigated..." writes K. Ashok Ram, SSMI general secretary, in the report.

The study has recommended that the midday meal scheme be split so that there are two components to the meal - a snack as soon as the child comes to school followed by the full-fledged meal.

They have also recommended health checks and better remuneration for cooks, nutrition surveys on eating habits of children over a 24-hour cycle and rapid food safety surveys and overall, more investment in food safety. That apart, it has recommended smokeless chulhas and kitchens with separated cooking, washing and storage area.

Interestingly, this report also indicates that a hot cooked meal made at the school was better than the kind delivered and served in some areas by a centralised kitchen.

The December 2014 report was recently submitted to the HRD ministry.

DINAMALAR NEWS

DINAMALAR NEWS

Poor hygiene, stale food at St Joseph’s, finds raid

NAINITAL: St Joseph's College in Nainital, a prestigious residential school run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers that also runs St Columba's in New Delhi, was found to be lacking in ensuring hygiene and food safety standards during an inspection conducted by the food inspector and the Nainital sub-divisional magistrate on Thursday. 

Deepak Rawat, district magistrate, Nainital, said, "We decided to inspect the school after receiving some complaints. The inspection team has sent me a detailed report and recommended a fine of Rs 2 lakh for violation of Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006." 

The team that conducted the inspection reportedly found 90 packets of milk products past the use-by date. At least 40 packs of cold coffee, three bottles of mineral water and a bottle of green chili sauce too were meant for use, despite being well past expiry date. 

A member of the inspection team told TOI that garbage disposal and hygiene were also concerns at the institution, established more than a century ago. 

"The canteen and cooking facilities did not appear like they belonged in a reputed school. School authorities had done little to improve conditions since the inspection last year," sub-divisional magistrate Ashish Chauhan of Nainital, who led the inspection team, said. 

Irregularities and discrepancies have been observed in many instances in the past in conditions at some residential schools in the Lake City. Teams of inspectors who conducted checks in December last year on instructions from the district magistrate had found food and lodging arrangements wanting, and medical facilities scant at some schools. 

Peter Emmanual, principal of St Joseph's, said, "I was not in the school when the inspection happened. I was at the bank for question papers of the ongoing board exams. We will see the notice when it comes, and make an appropriate response."

KFC faces pressure after McDonald's says no antibiotics in chicken

KFC is owned by Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands Inc, which has no publicly stated policy on antibiotic use in the production of meat it buys. There are concerns that use of the drugs in meat production has exacerbated the rise of deadly "superbugs" that resist treatment.

KFC, the world's largest chain of fried chicken restaurants, may face pressure from consumer and environmental groups to change how its poultry are raised after McDonald's Corp said it would switch to chicken raised without human antibiotics. McDonald's will phase out chicken raised withantibiotics that are important to human health over two years to allay concern that use of the drugs in meat production has exacerbated the rise of deadly "superbugs" that resist treatment, Reuters reported last week. Within days, retailer Costco Wholesale Corp told Reuters it aims to eliminate the sale of chicken and meat raised with human antibiotics.

KFC is owned by Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands Inc , which has no publicly stated policy on antibiotic use in the production of meat it buys. Chick-fil-A, another chicken restaurant chain that competes with KFC, says about 20% of the chicken it serves is raised without any antibiotics, and that its entire supply chain will be converted by 2019. Both McDonald's and Yum are stepping up efforts to win back younger and wealthier diners lured away by chains such as such as ChipotleMexican Grill Inc and Panera Bread Co , which boast antibiotic-free meats and other high-quality ingredients.

Yum's KFC restaurants in China two years ago suffered a massive sales hit following local media reports that a few poultry farmers supplying KFC fed excessive levels of antibiotics to their chickens. "The train has left the station," Bob Goldin, a food services company consultant at Technomic in Chicago, said of McDonald's influence on US chicken production standards. Yum, which also owns the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains, declined to discuss its standards for antibiotic use in meat production. "The chicken served in our US restaurants is USDA high quality, and free of antibiotics," the company said in an emailed response to Reuters queries.

The antibiotic-free statement refers to a lack of residue in the meat served at its restaurants and not the practice of delivering antibiotics to chickens before they are slaughtered, said Steven Roach, food safety program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust in Chicago. The US Department of Agriculture has three classifications for poultry, A, B, and C, and doesn't have a "high quality" designation for chicken. Poultry rated A is what's typically found at retail, while poultry rated B or C is usually used in further-processed products where the meat is cut up, chopped, or ground, according to a USDA website.

Not Part of the Conversation

McDonald's told Reuters it worked with a wide range of stakeholders, including environmental group Friends of the Earth, to develop its US chicken guidelines. Yum and its brands have ignored requests for information regarding its antibiotic policy, said Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager for Friends of the Earth's food and technology program. "They have so far not answered any of our emails or phone calls," said Hamerschlag, who is working with other advocacy groups to persuade food companies to change their supplier standards to exclude animals raised with the routine use of antibiotics. By contrast, McDonald's was "very responsive" to the groups' requests, she said. 

Other groups working with Friends of the Earth to cut antibiotics from chickens and other meats include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Consumers Union and the Center for Food Safety. Friends of the Earth said its interest in antibiotics has to do with animal agriculture's connection to the environment and human health. KFC supplier Tyson Foods Inc did not comment. Other US chicken producers that have supplied Yum either declined to comment or could not be reached. It's not known who KFC's biggest supplier is or how many chickens KFC buys a year. 

In 2012, Chinese media reports about excessive antibiotic use by a few KFC chicken farmers hammered sales there. The country has more than 4,800 KFC restaurants and accounted for nearly half of Yum's 2014 operating profit. In response, Yum dropped some 1,000 small poultry farmers from its supply chain and launched a public relations campaign to reassure diners about the quality and safety of its food. Yum operates separate supply chains in China and United States.

While antibiotics have made for big headlines in China, the issue also has surfaced at home. A Reuters investigation last year found that KFC supplier Koch Foods Inc from November 2011 to July 2014 had given some of its flocks antibiotics critical to fighting human infections, even though its website stated otherwise. The Chicago-based chicken producer changed the language on its website after questions from Reuters about its use of virginiamycin, an antibiotic included in a class considered "highly important" to fighting infections in humans. At the time, Koch said it has no plans to discontinue the use of virginiamycin, which it says may be used to prevent a common intestinal infection in chicken. Koch did not respond to interview requests for this story. KFC US said at the time that its "supply partners must adhere to our strict standards and specifications, which in some cases are more stringent than the FDA's regulations." It declined to comment this week.

Strawberries top list of pesticide-laced food: EU report

Nearly half of food products in Europe contain residues of pesticides, with strawberries the most likely to exceed legal limits, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said on Thursday.

The official EU body also found traces of pesticides in organic foods, though it said its analysis of almost 81,000 food samples found the risk of any negative impact on health was low.

But campaign groups said the data was worrying, especially in the cases where residues of more than one pesticide were found. They said the pesticides were mostly fungicides, which are possible carcinogens, and more research was needed into the implications of exposure to more than one.

The latest EFSA report, for 2013, found that almost 55 percent of the samples of food products in European Union and neighboring countries were free from detectable traces of chemicals.

Of the rest, only 1.5 percent clearly exceeded legal limits, meaning that businesses responsible for them face action.

The highest rate of exceeding limits was for strawberries (2.5 percent of the sample). They are especially sensitive to disease and so undergo considerable spraying with pesticides.

EFSA said it had tested for 685 pesticides in the 27 nations that belonged to the EU for all of 2013 (Croatia joined in that year), plus Norway and Iceland, and had found multiple residues in 27.3 percent of samples.

"For short-term exposure, the risk of European citizens being exposed to harmful levels of residues via their diet was rated as low," the EFSA said in a statement.

"Exceeding the legal limit does not necessarily imply exceeding the safety limit," it said.

The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) advocacy group was sceptical, calculating that one out of every eight boxes of strawberries contained six pesticide residues.

"In general the pollution of European food with pesticide residues remains at a very, unhealthy high level and there is no real improvement visible in recent years," Martin Dermine of PAN Europe said.

For organic food, 15.5 percent of samples contained pesticides within legal limits and mostly of kinds permitted for organic farming, but 0.8 percent exceeded permitted levels.