Madurai: Claiming that college students in Madurai are largely unaware about the health hazards of eating snack items in which excessive artificial colouring is used, the Madurai food safety department will be conducting intense awareness campaigns in college campuses in the next few months. Sources from the department said that the practice of adding excessive synthetic colouring was still rampant in several shops.
The first such campaign – as part of the ‘Eat Right India’ initiative – was held at the Lady Doak College (LDC) on Friday, where an inter-college festival was organized. The department put up several food stalls, in which food items that were unsafe (due to the addition of synthetic colours), safe and healthy were on display.
Students who visited the ‘unsafe food stall’ to buy snack items like cakes, sweets, murukku etc., were give awareness talks on why such food items should be avoided. The food safety department officials even asked the students to dump the ‘unsafe food items’ in the garbage.
According to the designated officer (DO) for the Madurai district food safety department, Dr M Somasundaram, the department came up with this initiative since there was very less awareness among youngsters about artificial colouring in food items and because youth generally only preferred items that were visually appealing and colourful. “Our main aim behind coming up with these campaigns is to inform youth about how unhealthy the sweets and savouries prepared with excessive colours are and on helping them choose healthier or at least safer variants,” he told TOI.
Speaking about the health hazards of excessively coloured food items, Somasundaram said that it could cause harmful effects in people of all age groups. “The known fact that such food items could increase the risk of cancer is just one of the many health hazards. Right from causing attention deficit hypersensitivity disorder (ADHD) among children to causing migraine among women, there are several other health hazards,” he said.
Alternative food stalls like ‘safe and traditional food’ and ‘healthy food’ where food items were sold at a subsidised cost of Rs 5 and Rs 10. In safe and traditional food stall, snack items like multi-grain kalakala, pearl millet-based sweets and savouries and traditional drink like panagam were put up for sale, while in the ‘healthy food stall’ items prepared with bitter gourd, banana flower and banana stem, white and black chickpeas, lima beans, white peas, horse gram etc – that are low in fat, salt and sugar – were on sale.
Meanwhile, a source from the department said that they resorted to this form of campaign because, even after repeated action and measures against sweet stalls and bakeries, usage of excessive artificial colouring was still rampant. “Only during last Diwali, we seized large amounts of sweets and savouries in which excessive colouring was added, but even now, it hasn’t reduced by a large extent. So we thought one way of effectively curbing it would be through reducing the demand for such food items by creating awareness among the youth,” the source said.
Some of the health hazards due to regular consumption of sweets, savouries and other desserts in which excessive artificial colours are added (according to food safety department)
1. Attention deficit hypersensitivity disorder among children
2. Migraine among women
3. Exacerbation of skin allergies and conditions like asthma
4. Indigestion and stomach pain
5. Issues to kidney
6. Increased risk of cancer
Snack items made with following vegetable, sprout and pea varieties that are healthy (as recommended by the food safety department)
1. Banana flower and flower
2. White lima beans
3. Green peas
4. Lima beans
5. White peas
6. Red kidney beans
7. Cowpea
8. Organic raw groundnut
‘Safer’ snack items (according to doctors and nutritionists)
1. Adhirasam
2. Peanut jaggery balls
3. Rava laddu
4. Rice murukku
5. Sesame jaggery balls
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