TEACHERS REFUSE TO BE MEAL MANAGERS TOO- THE BIHAR TRAGEDY AFTERMATH

The chicken has come to roost at last vis-a-vis the food contamination episode in Bihar as more than 300000 teachers across the state have revolted against the State government for the insinuation made by one of the ministers that the incidence was a conspiracy to defame the government! Will any self respecting teacher continue to work any more for the government under such circumstances? After all teachers are forced to undertake management of the feeding program being carried on under most primitive conditions over and above the teaching responsibility for which they are appointed and paid for! The babus and politicians take the credit when any government program is lauded while the blame for any mishap is passed on to the low paid workers like teachers in the present case. With the teachers on the war path what option the so called progressive government now ruling will have to continue the program? Will the school meal program be abandoned as the minister concerned has thrown up his hands in despair? What is most disgusting is the implied insinuation that kids were deliberately poisoned for political gains by the opposition political parties! That means the school teachers have no integrity and humaneness in carrying out the diabolical plan with the support of some politicians to murder 23 kids in broad day light! Here is a take on this latest turn of events in Bihar where the ruling party has no time for development work, spending most of its time in its political maneuver to become a shiny model of secularism in the country, whatever that means!

"A week after the death of 23 children from eating a contaminated mid-day meal in Saran district, teachers are in no mood to assist the government in running the scheme. "It was unanimously decided at a meeting of the Bihar State Primary Teachers' Association to boycott the scheme," its president, Barajnandan Sharma, told IANS. "We had repeatedly requested the government in writing to involve teachers in academic work only and employ some agency for the scheme, which was ignored. Teachers should not be burdened with all kinds of non-academic work," he said. Teachers are blamed for anything that goes wrong with the scheme, Sharma said, adding: "It is giving a bad name to teachers due to rampant corruption." He said that it is a well-known fact that teachers and headmasters have to invariably manage the mid-day meal scheme with third-grade food stuff and corruption at every level. "Top to bottom, officials have information about it. But when something happens, a teacher or headmaster is solely blamed for it despite the fact that there are several officials involved in it," he said. Refering to the Saran tragedy, Sharma said: "There may be some mismanagement. Even human error cannot be ruled out. But putting the blame on teachers even before an inquiry has completed surprised us." In the wake of teachers' decision to boycott the scheme, Bihar Education Minister P.K. Shahi said it was difficult to arrange for an agency to run the scheme in 72,000 schools across the state. "The government does not have the resources to hire an agency for the huge task of serving mid-day meals to 1.60 crore students," Shahi said".

The minister has no business to lament about the helplessness of the government in continuing with the program of feeding 16 million kids every day after making the allegation of sabotage in the poisoning episode. Did he not think about the consequences of his irresponsible uttering about sabotage? If the state government does not have the ability to continue with the program why not stop it right now and think of other alternatives to reward the kids for showing their face in the school. Both the governments at Delhi and in the states will have to bear the responsibility for the latest tragedy because they were cornering all the credits being showered on the country by international agencies for "running" the largest "feeding" program in the world! When will the government of India wake up to the reality that schools are not meant to cook foods and teachers cannot manage such hot food programs without affecting the quality of education? There is no other alternative, whether one likes it or not, to supplying processed packaged foods, ready to eat, prepared by established manufacturers with guaranteed quality and safety. Government of India must wake up to this reality before more such tragedies as that happened in Bihar are repeated over and over again across millions of schools in the country.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

CRAZY IDEAS FOR CRAZY SITUATION!-SUGGESTION FOR FOOD STOCK LIQUIDATION

Food grain surplus available with Government of India is increasing every year due to the diligence of the farmers and decent procurement prices ( MSP) offered to them. On one hand MSP provides the farmer a safety net so that he is not exploited by the traders while increasing flow of grains into government granaries is creating an infrastructure jam in the form of inadequate safe storage facility and lack of quality and management factors. In spite of strictures from the Supreme Court on the wastage of grains year after year, very little has been achieved so far address the storage problem. Suggestions are made from time to time regarding the best way to get rid of the stored grains held beyond the food security linked storage level though Government is still not sure as to how this food surplus is to be tackled. Latest view on this subject is bizarre in that it suggests that eligible consumers are to be supplied with their 3 years' grain requirement at one go to get rid of the grain stock! Here is a take on this "hilarious" suggestion.      

The paper noted central agencies had excess stock even after taking into account what was needed for the FSB. The authors calculated that stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) would be in excess of 30 million tonnes as on July 1. The value locked in these ranges from Rs 70,000 crore to Rs 92,000 crore. The paper suggested states where the Public Distribution Systems have been integrated with Aadhaar, the citizen identification number, be allowed to lift 36 months of their off take requirements at a discounted price. The discount, the authors suggested, would be equal to the cost of carrying by FCI. These states can ask consumers to lift their 36 months' quota at one go, with a discount on the PDS price. That way, consumers can get a larger quantity of grain and FCI would have more storage space. One of three other alternatives suggested is an open market sale scheme at last year's MSP, beside a maximum of five per cent taxes, cess and others.

Those who make the above suggestion must be out of their mind because they have no idea as to what will happen to the quality of grains if they are stored at the consumer end. Food grains are vulnerable to infestation by insects, prone to attack by rodents and can cause irreversible changes in quality and nutrition progressively with time. Even the FCI, government's food grain procurement and storage arm finds it difficult to prevent spoilage in spite of their scientifically constructed storage structures and how can one expect that a family can keep the grains safe for 3 years? One should not forget the oft repeated claims by food experts that post harvest food losses in the country can be any where from 25% to 40%! Both Planning Commission as well as the government officials including the Prime Minister routinely talk about such food wastage in the country though at the ground level not much is being accomplished to save these grains from spoilage! This suggestion is outlandish and it only will enable the government to shift its responsibility of protecting the food to the poor citizens.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD QUALITY MONITORING-THE AWESOME TASK!

India is a large country with 1.2 billion plus population with diverse culture and economic standards. Any thing to be done on a pan-India scale is fraught with insurmountable problems and only dedication, commitment, perseverance and high investment can show positive result at the ground level. In spite of good intentions and massive investments, the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening and poor people in the country are increasingly being mired in endless miseries and agony which do not seem to give them much hope about their future. Food is an area where the country has done reasonably well, at least with regard to production of staple grains like wheat and rice. Of course the story of oil seeds and pulses is one of many missed opportunities and billions of rupees are being spent to bring these foods from out side the country every year. The onus on the government to protect the food supply is indeed awesome and the special purpose vehicle created for the country's food safety is still in its formative stage trying to prove its mettle during the last 5 years. Unfortunately this outfit under the name Food Standards and Safety Authority (FSSAI) has been created with a heavy bureaucratic structure with doubtful capability for showing any dynamism at the ground level. As this agency is heavily dependent on the state governments with no authority to enforce its writ, the policies often do not get implemented. Here is a take on this important area of concern to the Indian citizen, viz how food is the food taken by him!

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The agency is working to bring on board about 55 million people engaged in various food businesses and register them with the organisation by February 2014, Chandramouli said. Currently, only one million licences have been issued to food and beverage operators. To check and maintain food standards, FSSAI is in the process of setting up testing laboratories, he said. "Our aim is to have at least one laboratory in each state initially. Later, we plan it to increase this to at least one lab for every 20 districts in the next five years," he added. There are currently 72 government laboratories, which are to be upgraded during this period. Simultaneously, 33 new such testing centres will be set up. On food imports, Chandramouli said: "Our country imports lot of food items now. Though there is no fixed figure available, but Rs2-3 lakh crore of foods come to India every year." "We don't have food and safety standards in the country which deal with food products across the spectrum. For this, we need to get the state governments and other stakeholders on board," Chandramouli said, adding implementation of the FSSAI Act continues to remain a challenge".

The above report laments about lack of allocation of funds to FSSAI during the 12th Plan and one is afraid that this could as well become an excuse for non-performance or under performance.It is common knowledge that the quality of food made in India and imported at great cost is suspect because of grossly under developed infrastructure and shortage of critical personnel to run the monitoring program sincerely and effectively. With legal system delaying trials of food fraudsters for years, many are able to get away with blatant violations of existing laws and wide spread adulteration.  One of the excuses trotted out for under performance is lack of standards available to enforce but this argument cannot be sustained when it is realized that international standards under FAO-WHO as well by different global organizations are in place for thousands of foods which can easily be adopted till domestic-specific ones are evolved. FSSAI seems to be over obsessed with licensing and wants more than 55 million food handlers to be brought into its licensing system! Is it practical? What next after registration? Does it have adequate capability to undertake surveillance of these players regularly? Millions of home scale processors, cottage units and micro enterprises cannot be expected to register with FSSAI which is both time consuming and cumbersome. Since the retailers who sell the food articles are all licensed by local civic authorities, it is easier to make them accountable vis-a-vis quality of food sold by them. The onus of selling safe food must be put on these retailers who must be punished if he peddles bad food even unintentionally. Such an environment will starve the fraudsters of a market eventually. No doubt a body like FSSAI is a necessity for the country but it must be made to work hard and diligently for the welfare of the common man.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

NEW MICROWAVE TECHNOLOGY FOR BETTER PROCESSING-COMMERCIALLY FEASIBLE?

Rapid development of microwave heating process during the last 25 years has enabled food processing industry and the house hold kitchens to prepare foods rapidly without the conventional electric or gas based heating systems. There is no doubt that microwave ovens have become a ubiquitous part of almost all kitchens in most developed countries because of the great convenience factor associated with their use. Ever since Raytheon developed its monstrous 1.8 meter tall, 340 kg, 3 kWh energy guzzling Radarange oven in 1947 based on microwave radio frequency, to day's sleek models with hardly 1100 watts energy load and looking almost like a small television set in a kitchen has come a long way to capture the imagination of every house holder. From just 1% of families owning a microwave oven in 1971 in the US, to day more than 90% have this modern gizmo improving the quality of their lives dramatically during the last 3 decades. Most microwave ovens operate under 2450 Mega Herz frequency which is universally recognized as a ISM band (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) radio frequency reserve for purposes other than communication. Out of the four ISM bands of 24125, MHerz, 5800MHerz, 2450 MHerz and 915 MHerz only 2450 MHerz is used for designing domestic microwave ovens. Recent emergence of 915 MHerz as an attractive alternative for large scale food processing has opened up opportunities for deploying this technology for heating and sterilization of many food products. Here is a report highlighting the importance of this technology to the industry.

"For decades, realizing the promise of rapid sterilization using microwaves has been a dream of the shelf-stable food industry.  Washington State University in collaboration with Natick Soldier Center formed an industrial consortium to obtain regulatory acceptance for 915 MHz single-mode microwave sterilization.Upon receiving that acceptance, the technology was licensed to Food Chain Safety who developed the technology into a commercial reality.  Rob Wilson, CEO Food Chain Safety said, "This MATS-B installation represents the culmination of years of development work and the start of an exciting new era in food processing."Major benefits of the MATS microwave sterilization system:• It delivers food that not only looks better but also tastes much better than canned foods. • Maintains nutritional value of the food.• Uses high-power microwave energy to heat packaged food to sterilization in a fraction of the time required with traditional canning processes. • Consistently heats products in a repeatable, measurable pattern. • The continuous process allows manufacturers to achieve higher throughput and lower production costs and provide workers with better work environments vs. traditional canning operations. • The new preservation technology offers great opportunities to create new and high quality products that are not possible with conventional methods".

It is not that microwave heating technology was not being used by the industry in the past but often the results have not been entirely satisfactory with energy costs being higher, non-uniform heating, design insufficiency and some food handling problems hampering its wide scale adoption. The new 915 MHerz technology is supposed to address these problems and with the approval from authorities for use of this frequency food industry may be tempted to use the microwave energy more widely in the coming years provided the system is cost effective. Though electric energy conversion into heat is only about 65%, microwave technology still is superior to other modes of heating. Models with capacity as high as 1800 kg per hour continuous processing now being offered, large scale processing is now possible.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE POWER OF "SEEING" THE QUALITY-A FOOD TESTING DEVICE FOR CONSUMERS

It is the ultimate dream of any consumer to be equipped with the power to see through the nutritive benefits of packed foods as the trust between the industry and the consumer is continuously being eroded due to frequent food related health afflictions all over the world. According to some reports the nutrition labeling practices being followed by a major segment of food industry are suspicious in the eyes of the consumer because of lack of transparency in the working of the industry in general. Claims not sustained by irrefutable scientific evidence are the order of the day and it is no wonder that the EU food safety council rejected more than 98% of the label claims submitted by the industry last year! Development of a spectrometer that can be used by a lay man for gauging nutritional quality of a packed food offered for sale in the supermarket, as reported recently, if true may be a powerful tool in the hands of the consumer. Here is a take on this exciting development.    

'A new spectrometer is being developed that will allow consumers to gauge food quality, where they physically purchase it, before they buy it. The device is very small, very inexpensive, and may be able to be installed in smartphones. The researchers envision consumers being able to hold their smart phone above a product, activate the app, choose the food type in question from within the app, and the device will make its recommendation. The device measures starch, water, sugar, fat, and protein content within consumer products. The device works by seeing several centimeters below the surface of the outer packaging of the product, reflecting different wavelengths of light near the infrared range with different intensities. Commenting on the device, Dr. Heinrich Grüger of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresdent, where the device is being developed, said, "We expect spectrometers to develop in the same way that digital cameras did."

There can be many a slip between the cup and the lips but the very possibility that such a tool can be feasible is itself some solace for the much harried consumer who has no where to go if not satisfied by the service provided by the industry. Whether the figures recorded by this gadget will have any legality is a question that will emerge once its use becomes widespread. Even other wise use of the spectrometer for selecting foods which are superior to others will itself provide some teeth to the consumer in demanding better products. It will make every industry to think twice before fooling around with nutritional content figures on the label. Hopefully truthful labeling practices may thus be achievable over a period of time after the advent of this new instrument.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

NATURE'S BARCODE-A NEW TOOL FOR DETECTING IDENTITY OF FOOD

Food fraud is now acknowledged to be a universal phenomenon and safety management agencies in many countries are exasperated by the ingenuity shown by the fraudsters in thumbing the government vigilance system with more and more sophistication in their strategy. It is true government agencies with enormous resources and facilities invariably catch up with the criminals but due to tremendous diversity of foods manufactured and complex chemical composition of many of these organic cocktails, it is next to impossible to have an iron-clad case against adulterated or quality compromised foods. Recent development of a low cost technology that makes use of the presence of isotopes of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in almost all foods may provide an answer to the prayers of food safety vigilante for such a tool to hunt down adulterators and fraudsters indulging in such crimes. Here are some details about the new development which is pregnant with long term implications for the food industry. 

"Until now bar codes, certification seals and electronic ID chips have been the main tools to cement consumers' confidence in food products. But as the recent fish and olive scandals show, they're far from foolproof. Food can be substituted or adulterated at any point in the supply chain, often without companies knowing. Enter the "optical stable isotope analyzer," a not-too-sexy name for a device that could provide a lot more certainty about a product near the end of its long journey to the consumer. Already in use to measure air quality and detect gas leaks, the technology, created by the Silicon Valley firm Picarro, can also detect isotopes in food. Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon — found in everything from hamburger to oranges — leave a detailed signature behind illustrating the weather, plant type, growing conditions and manufacturing processes. Picarro calls it "nature's barcode." By analyzing the isotopes — versions of common atoms that have slightly different masses – in this barcode, the Picarro device can detect minute differences in the chemical composition of foods".

Food adulteration is more common with high cost foods like olive oil, honey, caviar, saffron, spices etc and the incentive for tampering with these foods is extraordinarily high. While economically motivated adulteration can be tolerated to some extent, it is the activity of fraudsters indulging in food adulteration using unsafe substances that poses real challenge. Of course ideally no adulteration can be condoned and those who indulge in such practices must be punished severely and mercilessly as part of a deterrent policy. Whether availability of techniques such as the above will still guarantee safe foods to the denizens is still an uncertainty because unless there are adequate technical personnel and physical infrastructure put in place for safety monitoring of products at the processing place as well as the market place, no matter how efficient the instrument may be, the fraudsters will still get away!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE DAY OF RECKONING FOR FOOD TRUCKS-SAFETY ASPECTS FOCUSED

The Food Truck phenomenon has spread far and wide in the United States and customers are increasingly patronizing these mobile eating joints almost bordering on frenzy! Sociologists, psychologists, economists and health experts are baffled by this trend while established restaurants are fretting and fuming because of its impact on their bottom line. After witnessing literally the explosive growth of Food Trucks during the last couple of years, regulatory authorities are lately waking up to the potential for food poisoning and food related afflictions due to this lightly regulated catering system. Many civic authorities are trying to tighten the monitoring regime for these trucks though in practice it poses enormous logistical problems. These are highlighted in a recent report emanating from the west coast of the US. 

"Food trucks have rapidly become a delicious mealtime staple around San Diego County, with new trucks and locations popping up on a daily basis. This semester, USD has even decided to jump on board the movement with the installment of Torero Tu Go, the West Coast's very first campus-run food truck. These gourmet meals on wheels range in specialties from prime grass-fed burgers, fresh pasta, modern Asian cuisine, seared ahi tuna, all the way to New England lobster rolls. Food lovers of all types can follow their favorite trucks on Facebook and Twitter to find their exact location each and every day. Currently there are nearly 1,100 food trucks and coffee carts roaming throughout the entire San Diego County, and the numbers continue to grow. Despite their hungry and grateful customers, food trucks have been subject to scrutiny and skepticism. The trucks are subjected to surprise health inspections on a yearly basis where the overall quality of both the food and truck itself are examined. In addition to the upkeep of the truck, inspectors also consider the temperature of the food storage, whether there is a proper hand washing area and whether or not all surfaces are sufficiently cleaned."

With established chefs and food connoisseurs getting into Food Truck business, there seems to be a perception among eating out diners that the foods served here are much better in terms of quality while very little concern is evident about the safety aspects. Probably a fool proof system of safety monitoring will have to be evolved in the coming days to pre-empt any unwanted health fiasco due to deficiencies in hygiene and sanitation. Since the United States has more than 50 states with different local laws a national consensus will have to emerge regarding regulating this nascent industry.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com