May 10, 2017
Ban ads, raise tax on fast food: FSSAI panel
CHENNAI: Concerned by the increasing burden of lifestyle conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hypertension, an expert committee set up by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has recommended a slew of measures including banning junk food ads on children’s channels and during kids’ shows, additional tax and clear labelling of contents and ingredients.
The report ‘Consumption of fat, sugar and salt (FSS) & its health effects on Indian population’ prepared by the 11-member expert committee also suggested ways to reduce consumption of unhealthy food products, noting that over half of all deaths in the country were due to non-communicable diseases. The FSSAI had constituted the committee to address this issue of high FSS content in food and associated health risks.
In its report, the committee recommended a ban on advertisements on foods with high FSS on children’s channels or shows. Such bans exist in smaller countries like Chile. Celebrity endorsements of such foods should be discouraged, and the online and social media should be sensitised to comply with this advertising ban. It also recommended imposition of additional tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and ultra-processed food (ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat-and-eat foods) to reduce the intake of pre-packaged foods and beverages.
The other recommendations include positive nutritional labelling which plays an important role in creating awareness on healthier food choices. The labelling information should be made mandatory for total calories, the amount of carbohydrate, sugars, fat, protein, sodium, dietary fibre and amount of trans-fat added, experts observed.
The FSSAI scientific committee has approved the comments and suggestions put forth by the panel. Experts were called from the fields of medicine, nutrition, dietetics from renowned medical research and academic institutions, which was prompted by a related direction from the Delhi High Court on wholesome and nutritious food for children.
It is indeed time that attention is turned to high fat, salt and sugar content in food. Though the country has millions living in conditions that make them susceptible to the many communicable diseases, it is diseases and conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases that account for as much as 53 per cent of all deaths in India. A high intake of saturated and trans-fats, sugar and salt are known to significantly increase the risk of chronic diseases.
According to estimates, the number of such deaths is expected to touch eight million by 2020 — an alarming 100 per cent rise from what it was just two decades ago. “Adverse health effect of consumption of fast or junk food which have a high content of fats, sugar and salt, on consumers, particularly in young children, has become a cause of concern,” the note on the committee report pointed out.
For this, however, the committee had to literally start from scratch. As the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 does not define the term ‘junk food’, the committee defined it as foods like pizza, burgers and soft drinks, and snacks like samosas and pakoras.
Fats
Fats should be largely consumed in the unsaturated fat or fatty acid (of which there is one or more double bond in the fatty acid chain) form.
Salt
Excess sodium intake is an important determinant of hypertension and cardiovascular risk. According to WHO and ICMR, salt should be restricted to about 5-6 gm per day.
Sugar
A total of 10 per cent of total energy is allowed as added sugars in daily diet. Simple sugars and refined carbohydrates should be reduced.
The expert committee analysed various studies on fats, sugar and salt consumption pattern in India and its effects on health. The studies showed consumption of these in the Indian population is high.
Junk in the trunk
It’s common knowledge that non-communicable diseases and cardiovascular illnesses are on the rise. Even though the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, doesn’t define junk or fast food per se, these have a high content of saturated fats, trans fats, sugar and salt. Thus, an 11-member expert FSSAI panel has come up with eight recommendations to protect children from such consequences...
1. Guidelines
a) Fats: Monounsaturated/polyunsaturated fatty acids and low-fat dairy products should be consumed every day. Bakery goods, which contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and deep fried foods need to be restricted.
b) Sugar: Consumption of complex carbohydrates and natural sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables should be encouraged. However, the intake of simple sugar in sweetened beverages and processed snacks should be limited.
c) Salt: Presence of natural potassium in inexpensive, seasonal and locally available fresh fruits and vegetables improve sodium potassium ratio upon eating. Salt rich foods like snacks, pickles are to be avoided.
2. Monitor: Periodic monitoring of FSS intake at national level to get evidence and establishing regulatory limits.
3. Ban: Adverts about foods with high FSS should not be shown on children’s channels or during kids shows. Celebrity endorsements should be discouraged and social media websites should not promote any FFS content.
4. Additional tax: Ultra-processed commodities and sugar-sweetened beverages should have additional taxes slapped on them. It could help reduce FFS intake.
5. Awareness: The multifaceted approach should be utilised by bringing nutrition, agriculture, food industries, health and allied sectors into the loop. That way, public health campaigns and school education programmes can raise consumer awareness.
6. Reformulation: Industry should be encouraged to opt for food reformulation to reduce FFS content in packaged products.
7. Label: Positive nutritional labelling plays a big part in setting trends, so information with regard to total calories, food value, FFS amount should be mandatory.
8. Enable: A nutrition-sensitive environment, with health, agriculture and food sectors in sync, will encourage the consumer to switch to better patterns.
India’s food safety regulator wants higher tax on packaged food, sweetened drinks
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) also wants a blanket ban on advertising of junk foods and beverages on children’s channels and content for children across television, websites and social media.
Packaged junk food may soon cost more with India’s top food regulatory authority recommending additional tax on processed food and sugar-sweetened beverages.
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) also wants a blanket ban on advertising of junk foods and beverages on children’s channels and content for children across television, websites and social media.
“Imposing additional tax on the purchase of commodities such as pre-packaged foods with high salt and fat content, sugar sweetened beveragesetc can be a pragmatic approach to reduce their intake,” said the FSSAI’s report on ‘Consumption of Fat, Sugar and Salt (FSS) and its health effects on India’s population’.
“Advertisement ban for foods high in FSS during children TV shows or kids TV channels is urged. In fact, we should progress towards a total ban law as being done in a few other countries like Chile,” recommended the 11 members panel of experts from medicine, nutrition, dietetics and medical research in the report, which suggests ways to cut unhealthy food consumption and lower the rising burden of lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.
The report suggests celebrity endorsements of unhealthy foods discouraged and recommends having a balanced diet with around 60-70 per cent of total calories from carbohydrates, 10-12 per cent from protein and 20-30 per cent from fat.
Higher tax on unhealthy food and beverages has been a longstanding demand of public health experts. “Modelling studies on how eating less junk food lowers obesity and risk of lifestyle disease such as diabetes, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease, which affect Indians at a younger age than other ethnicities. India must consider taxation on unhealthy foods, restrictions on advertising and appropriate labelling of food to lower consumption across socio-economic groups,” said Dr Anoop Misra, chairman, Fortis C-DOC centres for diabetes, metabolic diseases and endocrinology.
“The money from additional tax on unhealthy foods can be used promote nutrition education in schools and the community,” said Dr Misra, who made these recommendations in a paper for British Medical Journal.
It recommends all food labels must carry total calories, amount of carbohydrates, sugar, fat, protein, sodium, dietary fibre and trans-fat. “A total of 10 per cent of total energy is allowed as added sugars in our daily diet. Simple sugars and refined carbohydrates should be reduced. These come largely from sugar sweetened beverages and processed snacks with high added sugar content,” the report said.
It recommends fats in the form of unsaturated fatty acids (oils that do not solidify at room temperature), especially the long chain mono- and poly unsaturated-fatty acids, should be encouraged in everyday diets was among the recommendations.
The report will be a guideline document for all the stakeholders, including the FSSAI, industry and consumers, in reducing consumption of fat, sugar and salt through processed food products.
New packaged food labelling norms for more transparency on salt, sugar & fat content
NEW DELHI, MAY 9:
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is finalising new labelling norms for packaged food companies, which is expected to include provisions to ensure more transparency on sodium, sugar and saturated fat content in processed food.Expert group suggestions
The new norms will incorporate recommendations of an expert group which has proposed positive nutritional labelling and has proposed making it mandatory for packaged food companies to disclose total calories/energy value, amount of carbohydrates, sugar, fat, protein and sodium on their labels.
The expert group was constituted by FSSAI in 2015 to provide recommendations on various issues, including labelling requirements for packaged food and regulatory limits for fat, sugar and salt in processed food among others.
The expert group has made several recommendations such as banning advertising of food high in fat, salt and sugar on children television channels or during children shows. It has also suggested that celebrity endorsements of such foods should be discouraged. It has also recommended imposition of additional tax on packaged foods with high salt, high sugar and high fat content.
When contacted, Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI, told BusinessLine: “These are wide-ranging recommendations that require action by various stakeholders. The recommendations will be incorporated in the new labelling regulations, which we are in the process of finalising. The Authority will be taking up the labelling regulations in its meeting this month, which will then be sent to the government as part of the due process.”
On its website, FSSAI said the expert group’s report serves as a guideline document for all the stakeholders, including the industry, the FSSAI and consumers, in reducing consumption of fat, sugar and salt through processed food products. After the report was approved by the scientific committee of FSSAI, it has been put in the public domain by the regulator.
Other recommendations include encouraging industry for voluntary reformulation of food products to reduce the content of saturated fats,sugar and salt in packaged food. It has also recommended periodic monitoring of fat, salt and sugar intakes at national level.
FDA purchases Rs 70 lakh new modern equipment and machines for food testing
The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) was testing food and drugs samples with decades old equipments and machines for the last several years. But, now it will test with new equipments and machines. Besides, the new machines and equipments will give quick results and the adulterators might not be spared of the Government trap. Every month more than 200 samples are collected at the city FDA Central Food Testing Lab and due to ages old equipments and machines, the testing results were not perfect and were many times challenged by the traders and even most traders won legal cases against them by the FDA officers.
“When the new food safety law was enacted in the country, the Government of India had directed to all FDAs in states to be well equipped to tighten noose over the adulterators. So it is mandatory to have proper field and lab staff besides the machines and equipments with its update version, said a senior officer in FDA.
Sources said however, the new testing equipments and machines were purchased but the FDA has shortage of technical staff due to which it finds shortage of technicians to operate these equipments. Nobody knows when the FDA will get about 100 food and drugs inspectors and technical staff to test foods and drugs samples at the Central Lab.
In another food and drugs testing labs of the FDA, the equipments and machines are too old, when the technicians many times test a sample, then they can get result near to perfection but not perfect. Staff crunch is another problems in Indore and other cities. So most samples are sent by the district FDA officers to State Capital’s Central Food and Drugs Testing lab and they are piles of food and drugs samples collected by the Food Safety Officers. On the other hand, the food safety officers, its lower staff and technical staff are also retiring every year, creating more vacancies in the Food and Drugs Administration.
It is learnt that, FDA officers are understood to have planned to purchase modern food and drugs testing equipments and machines to its other districts labs also. The technical staff and food inspectors will be for all districts, particularly where there are only one are two food safety officers and more food and drugs shops.
When contacted Pramod Shukla, Joint Controller, Foods and Drugs Controller, said modern equipments and machines to test food and drugs samples costing Rs 70 lakhs were purchased. It gives fast and perfect results. We will soon recruit food inspectors and technical staff for lab, he said.
Apply online for food safety licences
Business operators can apply for food safety licences online or through e-service centres.
According to a Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department press release operators can apply for licences on www.fssai.gov.in or through the e-service centres.
Public can lodge complaints about food products at the WhatsApp number, 94440 42322, a press release said.
Food safety department cracks down on unhygienic drinking water
CHENNAI: Cracking the whip on supply of unsafe drinking water, the state's food safety officials have seized around 260 unhygienic and unlabeled water cans in the city in three days.
The drive began on Friday with four teams of officials from the department of food safety and drug administration being posted in and around Koyambedu, which is a gateway for units to ferry water cans from Tiruvallur district into the city. Fifteen vehicles were intercepted and 80 cans seized for having no labels. Water in around 30 containers was found to be unfit for consumption while some cans had other manufacturing issues.
On Monday, the department undertook similar inspections in Koyambedu, Egmore, Saligramam and Korukkupet and seized 106 cans after stopping 29 vehicles."In the coming days, we will conduct raids at retail shops and other units that sell water," said R Kathiravan, designated food safety officer for Chennai.
The inspection comes close on the heels of a similar drive by Chennai Corporation's health department. Sanitary inspectors raided food stalls operating in unhygienic conditions and seized around 150 water cans, 12 water bottles and 7,000 sachets.
Food safety officials say the number of unlicensed units selling water is likely to grow this summer as many licensed manufacturers have cut production because of depleting groundwater sources.
K Rajaram, chairman of Greater Tamil Nadu Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturers Association, said the average treatment of packaged drinking water in most units had dipped by close to 15% in the last one month.
Of about 1,500 manufacturing units across the state, around 400 are concentrated in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts alone. Around 90 lakh litres of packaged drinking water is sold in Chennai every day .The demand, manufacturers say, is likely to touch at least 2 crore by this month-end. Packaged water units require a groundwater clearance certificate and approval from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. They also require a licence from the food safety department before operating.
Officials say while contamination of water sold by licensed manufacturers - who are required to undertake at least four types of filtration - happens at the filling and packaging level, other violations, including misbranding and repeatedly reusing containers, happen at the distribution point.
"Only 10% of the manufacturers directly market the water. Most of us engage middlemen," said N Murali, patron, Tamil Nadu Packaged Drinking Water Association. The stickers on the cans may be of one brand, but the water inside could be of another, or worse, it could be just tap water. The can may be refilled only 35 times, but sometimes they are overused, he acknowledged.
"It is a concern for us, but it is not happening at an alarming level," he said, adding that his association has also been tipping off officials.
Food safety officials check packaged drinking water
Health first: Nearly 1,920 cans were checked and 106 were seized as they did not have labels.
Department plans to continue surprise inspections
With the peak summer setting in over the city, the demand for packaged drinking water has increased. The Tamil Nadu Food Safety Department, Chennai, has started cracking down on packaged drinking water for the past few days following complaints on unauthorised manufacturing units.
On Monday, four teams checked vehicles laden with 20-litre bubble tops in various parts of the city, including Koyambedu, Vadapalani, Egmore and Korukkupet. Nearly 1,920 cans being transported for consumption were checked and teams seized 106 cans as they did not have labels or were packed in soiled containers.
At present, there are nearly 425 packaged drinking water manufacturing units in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts.
R.Kathiravan, designated officer, Tamil Nadu Food Safety Department, Chennai, said manufacturing units are required to get licence from Bureau of Indian Standards and also a mandatory food safety licence to operate the units.
“We checked the cans for licences, labels, batch number and also the condition of the containers. We received complaints about mushrooming of unauthorised units selling drinking water.”
He also pointed out that nearly 165 bubble tops were seized for similar reasons such as no proper label or licence number.
The department plans to continue checks until the weekend throughout the city.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)