Indore: Despite an advisory from the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), local authorities are yet to ensure a ban on the use of newspapers to pack and serve food — a practice usually adopted by small street vendors — since it is a health hazard.
Manish Swami, the food safety officer in the Food and Drug Department said, "The administration has been conducting regular searches at food outlets to check if they comply by FSSAI norms. However a special drive is needed to raise awareness among people and penalties will be levied to discourage the practice."
He added that vendors found resorting to the practice will be fined up to Rs 25,000. For restaurants, hotels and other big players of the food industry, the penalty can be increased up to Rs 2 lakh.
"We plan to start a special drive to create awareness and enforce FSSAI's directives by adopting various measures," Swami said.
Since Indore is now officially the cleanest city, Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has enforced a complete ban on sale of drinking water in plastic sachets since the packaging material is of substandard quality and accumulates into huge amounts of garbage.
"As newspapers are cheaper than disposable plates, roadside vendors prefer to use it to pack and serve food items to save money. Residents' participation is also needed to ban the practice," IMC food safety officer Lakhan Chasane told TOI.
FSSAI's instructions comes after it was found that people's health was being affected due to the consumption of food items laced with newspaper ink. The advisory read that older people, teenagers, children and people with compromised vital organs and immune systems are at a greater risk of acquiring cancer-related health complications if they consume food packed in newspapers.
"Newspapers used to pack, serve or absorb excess oil from fried food is also a common practice in many homes," the nutrition consultant, Anita Joshi told TOI.
According to FSSAI, printing ink may contain bioactive material, harmful colours, pigments, binders, additives, preservatives, chemical contaminants and even pathogenic microorganisms that may pose potential risks to human health.
Q&A:
Chief medical and health officer (CMHO) Dr HN Nayak
Q: How harmful is this use of newspapers?
Answer: The kind of material used in making newspapers combined with different chemicals from the ink leave toxic components on foods, thus making it very harmful for health, especially for people with low immunity.
Q: What impact can it have on the health of pregnant women?
Answer: It can damage the digestive system, lead to defective births, disturb the growth of the foetus and adversely impact the unborn child's IQ level. Pregnant women need to take extra care and avoid using newspapers to wrap and serve food.
Q: What are alternates to this practice?
Answer: To absorb oil from fried food, one should use kitchen tissue paper instead of newspaper. Avoid drinking hot beverages in thin plastic cups. Carry containers to get something from a restaurant and use butter paper to wrap cut fruits.
Q: How can the health department ensure a ban on this practice?
Answer: To spread public awareness, we will have to work on a plan with the authorities.
BOX: Thermocol, foil too expensive
As an alternative to newspapers, vendors can use aluminum foil and paper/thermocol bowls but due to its cost effective nature, roadside vendors prefer the first.
"An 18-metre pack of aluminum foil costs around Rs 100 and a bundle of 50 pieces of paper/thermocol bowls is Rs 20/40 while it costs hardly Rs 10 to buy that amount of old newspapers. To pocket some money, roadside vendors use newspapers," a roadside street vendor, Ganesh Vishwakarma told TOI.
He added that customers never complain about this practice but if vendors increase the price of food items as to use aluminum foil or paper/thermocol bowls, he may lose business.
Some roadside vendors claimed they never receive any instructions from the food department regarding a ban on the use of newspapers to pack/serve the foods.
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