The 100 billion dollar Swiss Foods Major Nestlé
has ultimately been asked by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India
(FSSAI) to withdraw 9 variants of Maggi, for three alleged violations of the
Food Safety Standards Act (FSS Act), all posing serious threat to food safety
and Public Health. These three violations are: (a) presence of 'Lead' detected
in the product in excess of the maximum permissible levels of 2.5 ppm, (b)
misleading labeling information on the
package reading “No added MSG”, and (c) release of a non-standardised food
product in the market, viz. “Maggi Oats Masala Noodles with Tastemaker” without
risk assessment and formal grant of product approval. In the process,
celebrities endorsing the product have also been found guilty for conniving in
promoting such toxic products and are being booked for this malfeasance.
The
Indian law with respect to Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), the flavour enhancer
allowed to be added to food as per appendix A of the Food Safety &
Standards (Food Products Standards & Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, specifically
prohibits its use in certain specified food items including noodles (dried
products). So, when MSG has been found in Maggi, the Nestle had to be booked long
back for it.
Likewise
with respect to Lead as well, the Food Safety & Standards (Contaminants,
Toxins & Residues) Regulations, 2011, clearly state that no food article
should contain any crop contaminants or insecticides which are not mentioned in
the regulation. Under this regulation, a limit for Lead content has been imposed
for certain specified items, and for all other non-specified food items a limit
of 2.5 PPM by weight has been prescribed. Noodles are not specifically
mentioned in the list of specified items, so the maximum limit for Lead content
is 2.5 PPM. Therefore, Lead content found above this limit in lab-analysis is
violation of the regulation and punishable.
The FSSAI needs to be even more pro-active and vigilant in
dealing with safety, by laying down stringent standards for food articles and
regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale, import and labeling ,
to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food. In this regard, there are two more issues which need
urgent attention and redressal through proper enactments. One of them is
mis-describing the products for flouting the prescribed standards. Two of such
examples of deliberate mis-describing are use of the term 'Frozen Dessert'
instead of ice cream for substituting cream by hydrogenated vegetable oil and the other one is the use of the term 'beauty
soap' in place of toilet soap to reduce total fat matter (TFM) from 75% (prescribed
for toilet soaps) to 50% for cost-cutting. The Anglo-Dutch company, Unilever's
Quality Walls' brand of Ice-cream and the Lux beauty soap are an example of
each of them. So how would one
feel if a carton of ice cream has in a small, and inconspicuous corner of the
label marked with the term 'frozen dessert'. Today, in India, frozen
desserts have taken over as much as 40% of the ice cream segment. Is it not a fraud?
Frozen desserts are made with
vegetable oils and usually those vegetable oils that we often avoid in our diet
like coconut oil or palm oil. Ice-cream has to be made from milk and dairy fat
instead of hydrogenated vegetable oil. The consumer gets confused that probably
the beauty soap is superior to toilet soaps.
The ministry of
consumer affairs, food & public distribution too should have shown
seriousness in claiming damages on behalf of innocent consumers, especially
children, for misleading and deceptive advertisements by the food industry and
making irrational claims through celebrities targeting children for creating a
brand without any guilt which it had done though only now.
The other issue is of labeling genetically modified food
being alleged to be all the more harmful and not allowed into European Union
and several other countries. The ministry should also take a serious note of unlabelled
genetically modified food (GM Food) for making the consumer aware of what is he
going to eat. The FSSAI has to
frame regulations relating to genetically-engineered or modified food in
section 22. As consumers, we have the right to exercise our choice through a
mandatory comprehensive labeling so as to distinguish between food derived from
genetically-modified organism (GMO) and without GMO. A draft bill was developed
more than a decade ago in the ministry to make it mandatory to label every food
containing any GM content and state the
names of countries where it was banned. But vested interested ensured that it
could not be passed. The
long-awaited definition of junk food based on WHO Standards on levels of salt,
sugar and transfat found in the food also need to be made mandatory for labeling.
The Maggi controversy should now trigger to better enforcement of food safety
norms in all respects in our country.
Junk food needs to be marked so, as in the last twenty
years ready meals have become a big business world-wide. In fact, we spent over
$7 billion on them last year alone. As our lives are getting busier, ready
meals have been fast replacing cooking from scratch. Therefore, intake of
unhealthy ingredients like saturated fats, additives excess salt and sugar is
on increase. There are six common reasons why one should avoid processed fast
foods if one can. First, Vitamins and
minerals are synthetic in ready meals, as the processes they (ready meals) undergo
before being packed, ready meals become almost devoid of most naturally occurring
vitamins and minerals. So, synthetic vitamins and minerals are to be pumped
into such food. Second, they might make you fat, as the ready meals are more
calorie dense than natural options and full of low quality unhealthy
ingredients with high fat content. Three, they are full of sugar, fat or both, and make one obese. Four, they are
packed with additives, preservatives and colouring pigments, all of which are
mildly toxic. Five, they are full of excess salt which can cause fluid
retention around the heart which may cause high blood pressure, heart failure,
strokes and even heart attacks.
Sixth,
they can cause Metabolic syndrome as the results from a study entitled "Instant Noodle Intake and dietary patterns
are associated with Distinct Cardio-metabolic Risk Factors in Korea",
published in the Journal of Nutrition has shown that significant consumption of
instant noodles increase the risk for Metabolic syndrome comprising a cluster
of conditions which include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar level,
excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels that occur
together with increasing the risk of developing heart disease, stroke and
diabetes. In recent years, South
Koreans have been reported to be experiencing a rapid increase in heart disease
with a growing number of overweight adults. Hyun Joon Shin, lead investigator
of this study has found that eating instant noodles twice or more every week
may cause metabolic syndrome, especially in women. He said that the gender gap
can likely be attributed to biological differences (such as sex hormones and
metabolism) between the genders, as well as obesity and metabolic syndrome
components. Likewise, another potential factor in the gender difference is a
chemical called bisphenol A (BPA), present in the noodle containers is a
well-known endocrine disrupter, and interferes with the way estrogen and other
hormones send messages through body.
So
it is high time that ready meals Industry takes cognizance of its social
obligations towards public health and safety, and the statutory authorities
come up with more comprehensive standards and are stringent from content to labeling.
