The Hindu Reports on the Food Safety Express in Tamil Nadu

"Food Safety Express, a vehicle loaded with audio-visual equipment and awareness materials on prevention of food adulteration, began its journey in the district on Thursday to propagate the importance of food safety among consumers and food business operators.

The express was flagged off by Collector Anshul Mishra at Sairam Matriculation Higher Secondary School at Goripalayam here in the presence of senior district officials and representatives of consumer protection associations.

It will travel across the district from March 21 to April 8 covering urban and rural areas to create awareness of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006.

A team of food safety experts and consumer activists will visit schools, colleges, markets, hospitals and important public places explaining the features of the Act. Trained personnel will also demonstrate detection of adulteration in food items by using a special kit called ‘annam,’ which was developed by CONCERT, a sister organisation of the Consumers Association of India. Consumers and Food Business Operators will get information through bilingual portal www.foodsafe.caiindia.org.

Kalyani Rajaraman, project manager for the mass awareness campaign, J. Suguna, Designated Officer for Food Safety, Madurai district, Ashok Kannan, secretary, Public Welfare and Consumer Protection Association, and Rajendran, District Consumer Officer, were among those who spoke at the flagging-off function.

Apart from Madurai, the express, which started its journey in Chennai on January 17, is reaching out to consumers in Chennai, Vellore, Coimbatore and Tiruchi."

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/food-safety-express-begins-its-journey/article4537234.ece

Leaflet on Imports

Please view below, a leaflet we had prepared on food imports. As always, do click on the image to view it in a larger size and/or right-click on it and select "Save Image As" to save it to your computer.

Safe Food Handling

Please see below, a leaflet we had developed on the safe handling of food. Do click on the image to view it in a larger size and/or right-click on it and select "Save Image As" to download it to your computer.

Food Safety News

The Kerala State Ice Manufacturers’ Association has called off its two-day old lockdown of ice plants that began on Thursday protesting against food safety authorities’ order of closure of 15 ice plants in Ernakulam and Thrissur districts.

But for the 15 ordered to be closed, all the ice plants—which mainly served fishing industry—reopened late Friday afternoon. This followed the association’s talks with Health Minister V.S. Shivkumar and Joint Food Safety Commissioner K. Anilkumar.

Food safety officials had found traces of formalin and ammonia in samples taken from 13 of the 15, and traces of ammonia in the other two. Officials said a part of the ice blocks found their way to cool-drink shops and fruit-juice vendors, thus posing huge health risks. The ice blocks were mainly used to increase the shelf life of fish, thus putting the health of a majority of Keralites at risk.

Had the strike continued, the shortage of ice would have deeply hurt the fishing industry as ice is the main preservative used in the industry. It would also have hurt seafood exports.

K. Uthaman, general secretary of the association, said that they were calling off the strike on the assurance that ice plants would not be ‘arbitrarily’ force-closed without giving them time to take corrective steps.

The association had agreed that all the plants would secure licence from the Food Safety Authority and that they would abide by the norms stipulated by the Food Safety and Standards Act.

The Joint Commissioner of Food Safety, K. Anil Kumar, said the samples taken from the ice plants were sent to the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Kochi, for tests. The closed plants would only be allowed to reopen after getting the test results and the plants took corrective steps.

Food Safety Commissioner Biju Prabhakar, who is currently away at Mussorie, told The Hindu that all the ice plants in the State would be constantly under the authorities’ scanner.

Mr. Prabhakar rejected ice makers’ contention that ice was not a food item and that it did not warrant the safety standards stipulated for food stuff.

Since ice was being used as a preservative of fish, which the majority of Keralites ate, there was no question of lowering the norms for the plants, he said.

Source: The Hindu, May 4th, 2013

Leaflet on Labelling

We had a leaflet on labelling made, that you can now view below. Please click on the image to view it in a larger size, and right-click and select "Save Image As" in order to save it to your computer.

Registration

Please find below, a leaflet we had prepared on Registration. You can click on the images to view a larger version or right-click and select "Save image as" in order to save the images to your computer.

Please view the most recently updated list of State Food Safety Commissioners on our website, here:
http://fssai.gov.in/Food_Commissioners.aspx

Leaflet on Licensing

Please find the leaflet we had prepared on Licensing, below. Right-click on the image and select "Save" if you want to save it on your computer. Otherwise, click on the image to see a large version.

Be an Informed Consumer

“Studies say…”

Advertisers use that claim often enough. They tell consumers of scientific studies that guarantee the superiority of their product. But just what are these scientific studies and how are they conducted? These are questions that require examination.

A scientific study is a method of testing a hypothesis that constructs a test situation and then, using observation and experiment, either proves or disproves the said hypothesis. So, if a food supplement claims to make children grow taller, the study would involve a large number of children, some of whom were given the supplement and others who were given a placebo. Both sets would be observed over a period of time and their heights measured. If the study could prove that the supplement on the whole made the children on it grow faster than the children not on it, while controlling for genetic and other factors that influence height, then the makers of the supplement could use the study to make claims about their supplement’s effect.

Now, there exist a vast number of accredited studies in the fields of nutrition and health that help us gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between our bodies and the food we eat. These studies are conducted by researchers the world over, in a rigorously scientific manner and their results have helped us gradually better this understanding. On the other hand, there are also several studies whose independence is dubious at best. Let us examine this in more detail:

Whenever an advertiser makes a claim based upon a study, find out the name of the study they’re referring to. Was the study done by a reputed institute? Was it published in an accredited peer-reviewed journal? If it was, then it’s very likely legitimate, because these studies have been scrutinised by other independent scientists and their findings have been more-or-less validated. If it wasn’t, then you need to dig further.

Now examine the funding of the study. If the company making the claims in its ads is the one that funded the study, then you may well be suspicious of it. While this in itself doesn’t mean the study is incorrect, its independence is certainly questionable.

Additionally, researchers face a great deal of pressure from the corporate world, which operates on a different schedule than them. Time is money for a company, but good research often takes time. This is especially true for research into nutrition where results and also side effects aren’t immediately apparent. So examine the timeline of a study: how long the subjects were under examination and how big the sampling of test subjects was. The number of test subjects should be sufficiently large in order to even out statistical errors. Think at least a few hundreds, and preferably thousands.

FSSAI sets science-based standards for food manufacture. You can help us at this by being an informed consumer. We have a reward scheme for consumers who tell us about misleading or extravagant claims made by food manufacturers, that you can read more about here: http://fssai.gov.in/Portals/0/Pdf/Reward_Scheme(10-07-2012).pdf

Please always keep in mind that if something seems too good to be true, it often is.

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Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/airborne-admits-false-advertising/

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Have you checked out our Youtube channel?

We've launched a brand new channel on Youtube. It will be regularly updated with food safety related videos and information you need to know. Check out our videos on home tests for adulterants in food. The videos are linked to in the Youtube Channel column on the right of this page. Or, visit us here and subscribe, so you never miss an update! 

Watch your local newspapers for a licensing mela in your area

Schedule for December: 

Surat: 19th December

Lucknow: 20th and 21st DecemberBalasore (Orissa): 21st DecemberPune: 21st DecemberRanchi: 22nd DecemberCoimbatore: 23rd DecemberJaipur: 28th DecemberNagpur: 27th DecemberBikaner: 30th December