"DRINKING STRAW"-WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SAFETY?

Drinking beverages like soda and fruit juices is considered more convenient if a straw is used to such out the contents from the bottle directly or from a glass full of it. But rarely any one gives any thought to the safety of these straws offered in different places, especially in small juice or soda joints most of which use straws of indifferent quality. There are no standards for straws in many countries and under such an environment it is easy for many to indulge in production of straws of low quality and make a fast buck in the process. World over it is estimated that about a billion straws are manufactured for drinking liquid products and imagine the trash value of these disposable material which are littered all around in towns and cities with no strict environmental discipline. Straws which used to be made of paper a few years ago are ow made mostly from polypropylene plastics or polystyrene material with no biodegradable credentials. Besides these "tubes" can pose serious health dangers if the quality of raw material and ingredients used are not of food grade as it is reported from China recently. Here is a take on this little known area of food industry.  

"According to food experts, some straws could contain hazardous materials that can dissolve into drinks. Long term use can cause harm to the digestive system, premature sexual development, infertility or even cancer. An investigation team led by Lou Zhongping, who helped draft the standards on drinking straws, began inspections of wholesale stores in Shanghai's Yu Garden in early July and concluded only 10 percent of straws were qualified. Inspections 

also revealed forged quality safety logos. "In wholesale stores, we found the logo was hard to read and could be erased easily," said Lou,who is also president of the largest manufacturer of drinking straws worldwide, Soton DailyNecessities. Despite a request on July 3 by the market watchdog requiring that stores remove the straws from their shelves, a vendor said that the

straws are still being sold. Most of the quality safety logos are counterfeit, headded, showing a bag full of colorful drinking straws."Many beverage and milk tea stores as well as schools buy straws regularly, and we sell hundreds of packs every month," said the vendor, who only wanted

to be identified as Chen. In a beverage shop named Guoxiang in the Jing'an district, a manager surnamed Yang said he purchases straws from markets in YuGarden, and has never been aware of the safety concerns. Insiders said thick straws, such as those used for bubble tea, 

tend to be more at risk because they use more materials and are more expensive to make. "The price of a qualified straw is around 0.1 yuan ($0.016), which is double or even triple the price of a substandard one," said Han Ying, business department manager of Shanghai Guanxuan, a company that makes household products. "There is no threshold for producing inferior drinking straws asit's easy to attain recycled plastics, and anyone could start 

a business with several machines at home," she added. There are five straw producers in Zhejiang province's Yiwu, an international trade hub that produces at least 90 percent of the straws in the Chinese market, but the number of unlicensed producers in the country is more than 200, insiders said. The health supervision department in Changsha, Central China's Hunan province, issued a warning in May that some drinking straws might contain toxic substances after the findings of Lou's investigation".

The basic question raised by some health pundits is whether there is any need for using a straw at all in the instance? A very relevant issue. The Straw apologists contend that use of this contraption avoids contact of the sugary beverage with the teeth to a significant extent lessening the possibility of dental decay but there is very little evidence to support this argument. After all to get the full pleasure of drinking a beverage it is necessary that the liquid is moved around the mouth for the palate to sense the taste and flavor and even if a straw is used most will keep it in the oral cavity at least for a few seconds before gulping. Use of straw is also claimed to be helpful in avoiding contact of the mouth with the glass or cup which may be dirty or unhygienic. But it is silly to imagine that the contents in a dirty glass would be clean! All said and done it is time that strict safety standards are put in place for drinking straws immediately to protect the unwary consumers.  

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

QUALITY VS QUANTITY-AN UNBALANCED FOOD SECURITY POLICY

Hear this professor from Benares Hindu University who has a valid point regarding the usefulness or otherwise of the food security ordinance recently promulgated by the President at the instance of a lame duck government! He has a perfectly valid point when he has the courage to ask the "mighty" government at Delhi as to why it is prevaricating on the food safety act which is being implemented halfheartedly across the country? What is the hurry in enacting an ordinance for an ill planned doling scheme that entails drain of more than Rs 1, 25, 000 crore of honest taxpayers' money for a doubtful cause? If FSSAI, the so called Authority on food safety in India, is to be believed more than 60% of milk in the country is adulterated while millions of citizens are being cheated and injured by consuming adulterated and poisoned foods in the country, the government being a silent/ disinterested observer on the sideline! Here is the gist of the argument of this heart broken academician. 

"High drama is on in political circle regarding food security bill that ensures cheap grain for one-third population of the country. Congress is adamant for the bill as game changer and other political parties are considering it as vote bank politics. "As an academician and university teacher, may I ask these policy makers about some facts. Who will take care of implementation of FSSA, which was made to ensure service to the masses (poor as well as prosperous), regarding food available in market, either ready made, ready to eat or raw form," he said. Why policy makers are not ensuring the best services to commoner by strict implementation of provisions of FSSA 2006 amended in 2008, 2010 and 2012 for better services to every section of society. Why they are eying only vote bank that may be an easy target?"

Has he not a point in asking why the various provisions of the food safety act are not being strictly enforced in spite of passing the act almost 7 years ago? Without bothering to evaluate the impact of previous policies, enacting new acts is meaningless and inappropriate. This country is not short of good laws but it is at the implementation level that government falters very badly with inefficient management, a shirking work force and utter insensitivity! It is unlikely that such inconvenient questions will ever be answered by a government who is bent on bribing the electorate through promises which can never be fulfilled with the available resources without adversely affecting the national development agenda. 

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

RESTAURANT TYPE FOODS FOR SCHOOLS AND ANGANWADIS-A TN BONANZA!

India is considered one of the front line countries in applied nutrition programs benefiting millions of kids and vulnerable women through its schools and Anganwadis, spread all over the country. While school feeding programs are intended mainly to attract kids from low income families as a part of universal literacy policy of the nation, Anganwadis and other special feeding centers serve to augment the nutritional level of daily diets which are considered not satisfactory as per the health norms set by experts. After experimenting with instant food products which do not need any further cooking in the school premises for a number of years, it was Tamil Nadu which started the "freshly cooked" meals program for providing hot foods using locally procured raw material. Several other states followed this example and the responsibility was shared by the government agencies and many women based voluntary organizations. The ISKON organization is reported to be the largest agency to day in India in terms of number of meals served through organized central kitchens and well managed distribution logistics. Recent announcement made in Chennai by the CM of TN provides interesting reading regarding the ambitious goals of the government in making the beneficiaries extremely happy by providing the much needed variety for serving such meals. Here is a take on this new development.

"Thirteen varieties of rice and four types of egg 'masala' will soon enrich the plates of students benefiting under the nutritious noon-meal scheme of the State government, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa told the Assembly on Friday. Making a suo motu statement, she said the purpose was to break the monotony in the menu under the scheme introduced by former Chief Minister M.G. Ramchandran 30 years ago and to make them palatable. The government consulted well-known chefs and nutrition experts on this issue and 'channa biriyanai' and pepper egg were served on an experimental basis in a school in Saidapet and the Andhanallur panchayat union school in Chief Minister's Srirangam constituency. The students liked it and the chefs demonstrated 13 varieties of rice and four types of egg 'masala.' The Chief Minister said the new scheme would be introduced in one taluk in every district and depending on the feedback, this would be extended to other areas gradually.
There would be one set of menu for the first and third weeks of a month and another set for the second and fourth week.
The students would be served vegetable 'biriyani' and pepper powder egg on first and third Mondays; 'channa-pulav' and tomato 'masala' on Tuesdays; tomato rice and pepper egg on Wednesdays; rice, sambar and boiled egg on Thursdays and curry leaf rice or green (keerai) rice, egg masala and roasted potato on Fridays. The menu of second and fourth Mondays would be 'sambar' rice, onion and tomato egg 'masala'; mealmaker and vegetable mixed rice and pepper egg on Tuesdays; tamarind rice and tomato egg 'masala' on Wednesdays; lemon rice, tomato egg 'masala' and 'sundal' on Thursdays and rice, sambar, boiled egg and roasted potato on Fridays. The Chief Minister said the government would also provide a variety of dishes to the children attached to 'anganwadis' in the State. Special attention would be made to the children, considering their requirements and digestive capacity. The children would get tomato rice and boiled egg on Mondays; mixed rice and 'sundal' on Tuesdays; vegetable 'pulav' and boiled egg on Wednesdays; lemon rice and boiled egg on Thursdays; 'dhal' rice and boiled potato on Fridays and mixed rice on Saturdays and Sundays.Ms. Jayalalithaa said the new menu would increase the number of students attending school and improve their nutritional requirement"

Processed foods versus freshly cooked foods debate seems to have finally ended with most states opting for the latter though this option is fraught with very high degree of risks. Limited resources available for providing the needs of the children further restricts any choice, leaving the government with very little elbow room in designing the meals. Besides the activities such as material procurement, storage, fuel for cooking, actual cooking, serving the meals, cleaning the utensils etc all become additional burden/responsibilities for the school staff and teaching efficiency can be adversely affected. The risks of food poisoning is also very high requiring ever vigilant overseeing of the operation. Also debatable is the assumption that all children will eat the food and possibility of wastage also is high. Inclusion of egg is another uncertain move which may have some unforeseen reaction from vegetarian population among the kids. Ideally it is preferable that ready to serve foods are used for such massive operations and here is where the ingenuity of food scientists becomes crucial. The fresh food option now being used in many states may not be the last word on the subject and one has to wait and see the experience arising out of the present decision.

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

SCHOOL MEALS-ARE THEY GOOD AND SAFE?

India is supposed to have world's largest school feeding program which can be of envy to many other developing countries. If the statistics trotted out by the government at Delhi are to be believed, children going to thousands of school across the country must be a happy lot. Unfortunately there is a wide gap between the program on paper with billions of rupees invested and what is really happening at the ground level. Like the Public Distribution System (PDS) an instrument put in place for delivering food grains at low cost to poor families, in the school feeding program also there are reported to be large scale malpractices and corruption that derail the very objective of the scheme. There are several questions that cannot be easily answered if a critical study is made of the existing feeding programs. Ideally such a scheme should use a prepacked food basket consisting of at least a dozen varieties made in centralized facilities which can be distributed for consumption with minimum preparation efforts in the schools concerned. Unfortunately this is not happening in spite of the fact that Government of India owns world's largest food research organization at Mysore with capabilities to develop right mix of products for such programs. In stead the foods are "locally" made by school teachers employing child labor using ingredients and water of doubtful quality and safety with no proper oversight by knowledgeable people. A recent instruction issued by the government in Goa tries to address this issue with a genuine intention to prevent any untoward episodes of food related poisoning. Here is a take on this constructive step in Goa which can make some dent, albeit, very small on the problem of quality and safety.  

"With an objective to ensure distribution of proper and hygienic food under the Mid-day Meal Scheme to the students, the department of education on Thursday issued a circular announcing that all its officers/officials will make surprise visits to various schools in all the talukas to assess the quality of meals served under this scheme. A circular to this effect recently issued by the director of Education, Mr D P Dwivedi states that these officers/officials will have to submit a report with their recommendation in the prescribed format within fortnight of their visit. The circular also states that a schedule should be prepared by respective DDEs of zones to ensure that these officers/ officials visit all the schools and multiple visits of same school or no visit of schools should be avoided. The circular has directed the officers/officials of the DoE to find out during their visit as to whether the weekly menu has been displayed on the school notice board, the type of meal served, time and delivery of food by the self-help groups/ Mahila Mandals, maintenance of Mid-day Meal scheme register, type of food containers used and so on. The visit will also find out whether the head of the school has checked the quantity and quality while receiving the containers with mid-day meal, whether the meal is tested and tasted by the teacher before serving to the students, whether the meal is tested and tasted by the Parent-Teachers Association member before serving the same, and general impression of the visiting officers/officials as regards the mid-day meal served in every school. It may be recalled that the DoE had last month issued another circular asking schools to standardise the practice of making students wash their hands before and after eating the mid-day meal. In that circular, the schools had been told that the particular practice would reduce the occurrence of Darrow. During the academic year 2011-12, meals were served to 91,000 primary school students studying in altogether 1,134 schools, while at the upper primary level - from classes V to VIII - meals were served to a total of 62,000 students in 425 upper primary schools around Goa".

While such routine directions come at regular intervals, a larger question remains regarding the competence and commitment of the babus involved in management of the feeding program in hundreds of schools in the state. If education department personnel are appointed for overseeing the functions of schools receiving government aid, how can they carry out the food management related functions? Will they have sufficient spare time to devote to activities other than education? Do they have any basic idea regarding hygiene, sanitation and food quality? At least government must expose them to the dynamics of functions related to food distribution through limited short term training programs. It is a rudimentary principle of human relations that one will listen to only those who are more knowledgeable than himself and therefore the education department babus can have more authority in overseeing the school feeding program if they are trained in food handling basics.

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

  

WATER SUPPLY IN INDIAN CITIES-CITIZENS" WOES

While lot is being talked about the food security issues which are going to be faced in the coming years, little attention has been focused on the on-going water crisis being experienced in many urban entities throughout India. Though providing safe drinking water to its citizens in adequate quantities is the sacred responsibility of those who plan and manage civic facilities in these protected population areas, India is woefully lack of even the minimum infrastructure in these townships due to mis-governance, lethargy, callousness, insufficient investment and insensitivity to the sufferings of the citizens. Probably India may be the only country in the world where water quality in most of the towns and cities is totally unreliable and can cause damage to the health of the population depending heavily on the so called "protected" water supplies. One even wonders whose health the municipalities and civic corporations are protecting-the citizen's or the financial health of the private water suppliers and the bottled water manufacturers who are having a swell time under such an environment. Here is an interesting report from Chennai about the tragedy of water supply system here which reflects the unfortunate mindset of the governments with no value attached for human lives in their agenda!

"As many as 90 private tankers that cater largely to apartment complexes, hotels, hospitals and commercial establishments were checked over the past few days. The water samples transported by private vehicles were checked in various areas such as Koyambedu, Retteri and Padi. The exercise follows the recent death of two construction workers from West Bengal, allegedly due to acute diarrheal disease after drinking water procured from a private tanker supplier at their workplace in Pallikaranai. These tankers are becoming indispensable as the demand for water is on the rise. While Metrowater's supply is primarily through pipes, some localities rely on tankers for their daily needs. Chennai Metrowater operates nearly 670 tanker trips every day and charges a nominal amount for them. The remaining gap between demand and supply, especially for the suburbs and large establishments, is mainly bridged by private water lorries. While over 2,000 private tankers are said to be in the business in and around Chennai, there is no regulation or monitoring of the quality of water supplied or the number of trips operated by these private suppliers. According to sources in the Food Safety department, the Chennai Corporation is the authority to enforce quality norms on private water lorries in the city while the Public Health department fulfills that function in the city's fringes. None of the water samples checked had the minimum chlorine level of 0.2 parts per million (ppm), as per prevalent specifications. The water in these tankers had been extracted from bore wells or open wells in agricultural areas".

It is admitted that India is a big country and there are bound to be teething problems and occasional hiccups during the growing phase but perpetuating the dilapidated water supply infrastructure except for some stray improvements here and there is not acceptable to the citizen who invests heavily on taxes and confidence on the ability of the administrators to protect his life under the democratic system of governance. Projects are planned, heavy investments are made and execution is scheduled but it takes ages for such projects to take shape due to the inefficiency of the management system with no one bothered about such indefinite delays which can be any where from 5 to 40 years!. Many projects are never even completed, let alone commissioned! Accountability has become the casualty in the present day India with no one being hauled up for shoddy work in any sphere of activity connected with the governments. What a tragedy! What type of life a citizen can lead if the basic minimum water needed for a clean and healthy life is denied to him, though excuses may be many for the shirkers to trot out for the delay? Will India ever achieve a stage where at least water flows abundantly, let alone the promised honey and milk under the Ramarajya regime envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi? If the present trend is any indication, such a transformation is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

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

THE "BEST BEFORE" DATE-ITS SIGNIFICANCE

Front of the pack labeling is a boon to the consumers who can decide about their food purchases based on nutrient make up and desirable features of the product they are buying. But there is one aspect about which lot of confusion still persists and this is regarding the expiration date indicated on the label. One may recall the clarion call by one of the ministers in British Government recently not to waste food unnecessarily and cautioning the citizens against throwing every food pack that has crossed the expiration date. The million dollar question is whether the food contents are still edible after the expiration date and how safe they are. It is generally understood that if the content in a food pack does not show any changes in terms of smell, texture and other physical characteristics, it can still be consumed and many people are doing precisely the same these days because of economic compulsions. This issue is assuming more importance with more and more people ignoring the "best before" date which may have some safety implications and same is the subject matter of a recent report. 

"Cash-strapped consumers are turning to a rather dangerous way to stretch their food dollars — they're ignoring expiration dates and keeping leftovers in the fridge for longer periods of time. In a recent survey, the Food Standards Agency in the UK found that one-third of respondents said that rather than throwing something out once it's expired, they rely on the look and smell of the food to gauge how safe it is to eat. And that can be risky. "With most of us seeing our weekly shopping bills increase over the last few years, we are all looking for ways to get the most out of our shopping budget," said Bob Martin, a food safety expert with the FSA, but he warns, "Bugs like E.coli and Salmonella don't cause food to smell off, even when they may have grown to dangerous levels. So food could look and smell fine but still be harmful." Andrew Wilson of the British Dietetic Association concurred and added, "A bout of food poisoning is not only unpleasant but could be potentially life threatening. There's no point in taking risks with food safety."

Of all the information contained on a label, expiration date is the most useful tool for the consumers obsessed with fresh foods. It is a common knowledge that the moment the food is harvested till it reaches the dining table, a series of chemical, physical and microbiological changes begin and what industry does is to extend the life of the material through processing and packing. But no matter what technology is deployed food continues to deteriorate, albeit slowly after processing, even under modified atmospheric conditions, and that is why expiration date is indicated for getting an idea of the time lapsed between manufacture and selling. In the true sense expiration date or "best before date" is only an estimate with regard to the eating quality of food and it does not reflect the safety limit. While consuming date expired foods, one has to make doubly sure that there are no hazardous microbial contamination that can cause injury to the consumer. This is more easily said than done. Probably a safe way of ensuring this is by heating the product sufficiently, if feasible, to destroy any microbes that might have gained entry into the packet.   

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

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE!-ANOTHER VIEW ABOUT PDS IN INDIA

That the PDS system which is supposed to serve millions of impoverished Indian population is in total shambles is well known with massive pilferage being the hall mark of the program. The only point on which there is difference of opinion among impartial observers concerns the percentage of intended beneficiaries who get the real benefit, the estimates varying from 40% to 65%! In spite of the criminalization of PDS, country's GDP seems to be registering amazing growth with people to day having more money in their hands like never before. If the latest revelation that PDS grains are used by many families to raise Chickens and other domesticated food yielding animals is true, Government needs to rethink the strategy as to whether the PDS is really serving the purpose for which it was created. Probably those who receive the PDS grains find it hard to consume them because of extremely low quality and hence are feeding the same to raise meat, egg and milk! The brand new Food Security Bill further seeks to raise the subsidy and provide these grains at practically throw away prices of Rs 1-3 per kg! These reckless policies, with a hidden agenda of cornering vote banks, especially in rural areas, can only lead to more starvation, under nourishment, malnutrition and bankruptcy of the economy in the long run. 

Padmini, a native of Chertala Taluk in Kerala says that she gets more than enough foodgrains to feed her family at subsidised rates of Re 1 to 2 per kg. So she sees no harm in feeding the excess grain to household chicken and ducks. After all, eggs, chicken and duck fetch substantially higher value at the market. Moreover, it would be far more expensive to buy rice-brawn and coarse cereals which were fed to the poultry earlier. While the political masters are deliberating the prudency and expediency of the newly revised poverty line, millions like Padmini have no doubt crossed the invisible line which divides the poor from the rich in India. Suffice to say that it has been a feat without parallel in Indian economic history. A feat, more remarkable than India's tryst with liberalisation programmes. Despite all the success stories about India's green revolution and self sufficiency in food grain production, per capita availability of cereals stagnated around the 400 gram mark during the past 50 years. Productivity had marched ahead. Food grain production had tripled. But for occasional vagaries of weather and wild swings in production there was nothing substantially wrong with India's food production. The visible signs of prosperity both in India's rural heartland and urban sprawls are real. These signs meant that India's poor were consuming more. Per capita food grain availability should have zoomed. But that has not been the case.

According to recent reports, country's food production is expected to be unusually high and if procurement prices are right there could be a large inflow into the granaries of the government. With the storage capacity in the country being limited a substantial portion of the procured grains will have to be kept under CAP system of open storage which will further aggravate the quality problem already being experienced with PDS grains. If the cash distribution option being considered in lieu of food grains is implemented what will happen to the PDS is a million dollar question. A fundamental issue that is ignored by the policy makers is whether such free distribution of national wealth will not impact the human productivity in the country adversely as the need to work to get food is obviated by the government largess. Unless subsidized food is confined and restricted to those who are really poor by standard economic markers as assessed by scientific census there is no justification to waste national wealth so recklessly as being proposed.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com