FSSAI sets safety standards for goat milk

Places of worship cold to taking food safety licence for offerings

Sri Padmanabhaswamy, Guruvayur, Sabarimala temples take registration; majority of other Hindu shrines, churches and mosques ignore the FSSAI directive

KOCHI: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) directive to the churches, mosques and temples in the state to take food safety licence or registration to distribute ‘prasadam’ and offerings has received a lukewarm response. Though the state food safety department which started implementing the ‘Blissful Hygienic Offering to God’ (Bhog) campaign a year ago, only 1,652 PoWs (places of worship) have taken the registration from the department.

As per the rough estimate prepared by the department, over 15,000 worship centres in the state serve food to the devotees as ‘prasadam’. “The Bhog drive is an initiative by FSSAI to encourage places of worship to adopt and maintain food safety and hygiene as well as convey food safety messages through such places to the people to follow as responsible citizens. Though we have approached religious heads to bring the PoWs under the Food Safety and Standards Act, they are reluctant to take the registration. Most of them didn’t want to come under the radar of the food safety department,” said an official.

As per the information sourced from the department, only religious centres in Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram have taken the move positively. Of the 1,652 centres that registered, Ernakulam district received registration of nearly 200 and Thiruvananthapuram 320 centres. The major worship centres such as Sri Padmanabhaswamy, Guruvayur and Sabarimala temples have taken the registration.

“Since we can’t initiate any penal action against the authorities, the implementation can be done only through the regular campaign. There are some religious organisations like Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church which have positively received the move. The Mar Thoma Church has taken the registration for all its churches. We are working hard to implement Bhog in all PoWS,” said Alex K.Isaac, Assistant Commissioner of Food Safety, Thiruvananthapuram.

Meanwhile, the Food Safety Commissioner has directed all district collectors to convene a meeting of the representatives of all worship centres to make them aware of the rules. “We will convene a meeting of the stakeholders on February 5 to discuss the implementation of Bhog. The authorities can take the registration at the meeting,” said Ernakulam Collector S Suhas.

The FSSAI introduced the project after 13 people died and 130 others fell ill after consuming ‘prasadam’ from a temple in Karnataka.

Dr Rathan U Kelkar, Commissioner of Food Safety, was unavailable for comments.

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FSSAI asks industry to reduce level of unsafe food to less than 1 pc over next 4 yrs

New Delhi, Dec 11 () Stating that the public perception about food overall in the country is very low, Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) Chairman Pawan Kumar Aggarwal asked the industry to bring drown the level of 'unsafe food' to less than one per cent or negligible level in the next four years.

Addressing a CII event, Aggarwal shared a four-point vision and noted that the first aim is to bring down significantly the level of unsafe, non-standard and mis-branded food in the country.

Citing a survey of one lakh samples of food conducted by enforcement officers over last years, he said 3.7 per cent of food was found to be unsafe, 15 per cent was non-standard food and 9 per cent was mis-branded food.

"The sampling was done in an area where safety was a concern. The level of 3.7 per cent is low when compared to media reports of 60-70 per cent. In next four years, can we bring unsafe food level to less than one per cent or negligible level, while non-standard food to 5 per cent and mis-branded food to 2 per cent?" he said expressing confidence of achieving these targets.

This can be achieved through higher levels of surveillance, improved and targeted enforcement, review of food standards (in particular composition and vertical standards), regular monitoring of pesticides, anti-biotic residues and heavy metals besides building capacity of primary producers, he said.

Stating that there is "very low" public confidence in the food overall, the FSSAI chief said, "it is partially due to perception but there is some amount of reality. Obviously we have to communicate well with the citizen so that gap between reality and perception is reduced. We need to take concrete actions to address this issue."

He further said the second goal is to raise hygiene levels in processing and preparation of food across the supply chain.

Talking about promoting healthier and sustainable diet, Aggarwal said the third goal is to ensure that over two-third food is healthy and develop right eating culture in the country.

There is a need to review standards with health and sustainability lens, promote use of logos and symbols (like organic, trans-fat free and wholegrain) besides enhancing enforcement of claims and advertising regulations to ensure food is healthy, he said.

He also emphasised on the need to transform school environment, promote eat right campus, eat right districts and eat right cities through participatory movement.

According to FSSAI chief, the fourth goal is to build a robust institution ad ecosystem through partnerships and networks to deliver above three goals."We are building a high trust culture which is simple, fair and transparent. We have recently introduced performance management culture in FSSAI," he added. 

Govt doctors to be trained in detecting adulterated food

Coimbatore: The food safety department is all set to train government doctors in detecting food adulteration with a rapid test, using easily available items.

The move comes close on the heels of health minister Dr C Vijayabaskar’s recent announcement in the assembly that every primary health centre would be trained in detecting adulterated food products by way of DART (detection of adulteration using rapid tests). 

Now, the food safety department will conduct a training programme for around 50 doctors on rapid tests available for food items such as milk, ghee, oil, spices, sugar and fruits, at the public health office here on Thursday.

Designated food safety officer K Tamilselvan said there were many simple methods to detect water adulteration in milk. “Just put two small drops of milk on a polished slanting surface. If it is unadulterated milk, the droplet will be thick and flow down the surface very slowly. If it has water, it will flow down fast and when it falls won’t retain the colour of milk.”

He said saffron too was prone to adulteration with colouring agents and maize. “When pure saffron is put in water, its colour won’t run and spread. In adulterated saffron, the colour will run and turn the liquid into red. If bent, original saffron will not break at all while fake saffron could break.”

According to the food safety officer unadulterated asafoetida would catch fire if that were to be exposed to flames for a while.

While doctors will undergo the training on Thursday, they are expected to pass on the knowledge to paramedical staff and village health nurses in the primary health centres by December-end. “Once all the staff members are trained, they will have to set up a DART demonstration corner in the health centre on all special days like antenatal check-up days, review days and vaccination days, to help public, especially in rural areas, detect adulterated food products,” Tamilselvan said.

Don’t buy fish mixed in sand; Food Safety dept issues warning

Punalur: The food safety department has issued a warning to people not to buy fish that is smeared in sand. It also alerted people to be careful as this is done to fool the people misleading it to be it to be a new variety of fish.

The alert was issued at the awareness campaign conducted as part of the Model Food Safety Panchayat project. The traders fool the people saying that these fishes are caught fresh from the sea.

The sand found on the open shores are taken and spread over the fishes. These sand infected with germs get into the fish bodies and spread to humans, says the authorities.

Preserving fish should be done only with ice. A kilo of fish can be preserved using the same amount of ice. The fishes must not be dumped inside ice box. Pure water must be used to make ice. These huge blocks of ice must not be dragged on floors and vessels made of bamboo must not be used to handle fishes.

How to identify good fish 

• The gills of the fishes are shaped in a definite design and are dark red in colour
• Fishes will have bright bulging eyes 
• Look for firm, shiny fish
• Sniff the fish and it must not have a strong, fishy odour
• When you touch the fish, the flesh of the fish must bounce back
• The skin surface must be tight and scales tightly attached. Avoid fishes with loose skins

Rampant in TVM 

The smearing of sand over fishes is rampant in Thiruvananthapuram district. Now these kind of fishes are also seen in Kollam. These kind of spoilt fishes were seized from Anchal a few months back. Awareness campaign and inspections at fish markets have been intensified, says T S Vinodkumar, Food Safety Officer, Punalur.