Jan 19, 2020
Nellaiappar temple in Tirunelveli bags first FSSAI certification for offerings
Madurai: The Nellaiappar temple in Tirunelveli is to be the first temple in the state to receive Blissful Hygiene Offering to God (BHOG), a quality certification given by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for all food items offered in temples.
The certification was introduced by the state food safety and drug administration (FSDA) to ensure that the prasadam distributed to devotees in temples after being offered to the deity and also that sold in the stalls conform to FSSAI standards.
The FSDA had asked the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) department to comply with the rules. A meeting to this effect presided by Tirunelveli district collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish and officials of the administration was held recently.
It was informed that the prasadam provided by the Nellaiappar temple had been certified most hygienic and clean and that the certification would be given away at the Republic Day celebrations.
The Sankaranarayanar temple in Sankarankoil in the district has bagged the second spot among the major temples in the state in obtaining the certification. Temple executive officer N Yagna Narayanan said the certification had been implemented as a pilot project in the Nellaiappar and Sankaranarayanar temples.
As they had fulfilled the norms of the certification, they were also certified as BHOG quality standard temple.
The temple’s prasadam is boiled rice, but they also offered pongal and puliyodarai if the devotees wanted to make the offering. The annadhanam offered in the temple was also certified under this process.
Food vans test meals served to rail passengers
Kolkata: How safe is the food served to passengers on trains and at stations? On Saturday, officials from the medical department of Eastern Railway (ER), along with a Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) team, tested the food at the Sealdah station with the help of mobile units known as ‘Food Safety on Wheels’.
These vans not only facilitate the testing of food items and ingredients on the spot, they also provide training on food safety. This was under a scheme initiated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
“It’s a two-pronged approach. The primary objective is to ensure supply of good quality food to passengers while the second is to caution food suppliers that such tests can be carried out any time and they should not be negligent. During the day, nine samples were picked up at random from the executive ounge, base kitchen, Jan Ahaar outlet and the food court. All the items were found safe for human consumption,” said ER CPRO Nikhil Kumar Chakraborty.
“A training and certification programme for food handlers and supervisors was also conducted at Sealdah. Passengers were urged to update themselves on safe eating habits and report any issue with the food served to them at stations or on trains. Sanghamitra Chatterjee, ER additional chief medical superintendent, and Sarmistha Mukhopadhyay, food analyst, KMC, were present during the campaign. This will be extended to other stations under ER soon,” Chakraborty added.
A sweet alternative!
There could be danger lurking in every spoonful of sugar; Naga Jyothi advocates Stugar.
Apparently, Jyothi came across a newspaper article which talked about how people are changing over from a non-vegetarian diet to a vegetarian one for health reasons.
Hyderabad-based Naga Jyothi is a woman with a mission! She wants to make India as free from diabetes as possible. In pursuit of this noble aim, she has started with the two Telugu States. Backed by considerable research, she has brought out ‘Stugar’, a sugar substitute based on the Stevia plant, which is Food Safety and Standards Authority of India approved .
Her fascination with plants prompted her to do a B.Sc degree in Agriculture and follow it up with a postgraduate degree in Agribusiness Management. “I wanted to turn my fascination into a career,” she says, “But, like most other people, I went with the flow. I first entered the banking sector, then moved over to the development sector. In the latter sphere, I was associated with farmers and artisans, which gave me exposure to farming. I was determined to do something different. So, I quit my job and decided to pursue my interest in plants”, she recounts.
Apparently, Jyothi came across a newspaper article which talked about how people are changing over from a non-vegetarian diet to a vegetarian one for health reasons.
“So, I focused my research on the best vegetarian alternative which provides the same amount of protein and has the same taste and texture as meat, and the answer was mushrooms”, she says. It was while researching mushrooms that she came across articles about the prevalence of diabetes. She was inspired to simultaneously research alternatives for sugar.
There are many artificial sweeteners which are chemical based. I was looking for a natural sweetener and I came across the Stevia plant. It is a sweet herb, with many medicinal properties. This plant controls blood glucose levels and hypertension. I made a sweetener in the form of a powder, liquid and dip bags, under the brand name ‘Stugar’.” Convincing people to adopt this alternative to sugar was difficult for her. “Stevia is a sweetener, but people think it bitter, which is not true,” she asserts.
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