Mar 22, 2016

Generally branded as 'safe', herbal and natural colours are unsafe: Report by SPECS

DEHRADUN: Holi shocker! In Uttarakhand all those party people who are eyeing 'natural colours' for playing holi due to their 'safety' tag will actually play around with their health as those colour are unsafe. As per the latest sampling of 'herbal and natural colours' of Uttarakhand, a whooping 79% colours are found to be adulterated with highly toxic elements.
62 samples of colours were taken for test from 12 different places of Uttarakhand which had mix of branded and non-branded colours, 49 are identified in complete non-compliance to basic guidelines of safe herbal/natural colours as per the repot of Society of Pollution and Environment Conservation Scientists (SPECS).
Interestingly, Green which is in maximum used color in Uttarkahand, especially in Vikasnagar, Almora and Nainital, has been found out with highest toxicity (Copper Sulphate) followed by red(Mercury Sulphite) and purple (Chromium Iodide) colour.
The toxic elements found in the herbal and natural colours are major health threat, secretary of SPECS, Brij Mohan told to TOI, "The toxicity levels of these adulterated elements in the colours indicates that they will easily induce skin cancer, renal failure, minamata eye allergy, even temporary blindness in some cases. Another surprising fact which surfaced after testing these colours is that all these colours are 100% synthetic. The toxics produces being marketed in the society will cause major damage to young children and people with low immunity."
Prior to festive season, SPECS has not only conducted testing of natural colours but it has also conducted food sampling and another shocker came into light with most used food item - mustard oil's all the sample 100% adulterated.
Health department has turned complete blind eye and deaf ears towards one of the most significant issues of health- food adulteration - which is giving major leeway to the culprits responsible for food adulteration. Especially in the legal cases, culprits come out with a clean-chit due to failure of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) lab in Rudrapur to conduct sampling on time.
It is noteworthy that Uttarakhand health and family welfare department as of now is waiting for the results of 2015 Diwali food samples, forget about conducting Holi colours and food sampling. And what's more interesting is the guideline of FSSAI states that within 14 days food products sample testing should be done due to its vulnerability to rotting.
Lab analyst of FSSAI lab in Rudrapur, Rajesh Sharma, stating reason behind failure in conducting sampling on time, told to TOI, "We fail to do sampling of drugs and food on time due to manpower and infrastructure shortage however, this time our target is to bring out the result of holi food samples within one week, provided there is no electricity shortage and machines work unhampered."
Total 490 food products were taken for testing of which 439 were found to be adulterated and percentage of adulteration has peaked up to staggering 89%.
Meanwhile, after after oil (100%), it is tea whose adulteration level is 94% followed by Mava (88%) and then Laddu, batisa, burfi and milk cake (89%).

FSDA’s anti-adulteration drive in full swing before Holi; 10 samples collected, sent for sampling

Meerut: With Holi just two days away, the Food Safety and Drugs Administration (FSDA) on Monday raided six sweet shops in the city and rural areas to ensure no adulterated food items were sold. The raids continued till late Monday night and was conducted by a five-member team of FSDA.
"The shops in the city area are generally vigilant about using adulterated food items; but we wanted to check areas on rural front too. Keeping this into consideration, we raided six sweet outlets in city and rural areas both," said JP Singh, chief food safety officer.
Authorities collected as many as 10 samples of milk, milk products and various types of sweets. With gunjiyas, namkeens and cooking oils on their target, the food department has been conducting the anti-adulteration drive since last week.
Four samples of mawa and one sample of curd were taken from Radhe Lal Mawa Bhandaar, Subhash Mawa Bhandaar and Prakash Mawa Bhandaar from Hapur Adda area inside the city. Raids in Khairnagar area led to the sampling of suspected milk and ghee being sold at Shiv Dairy.
"We went to two villages for sampling. While one sample each of rasgulla and a sweet was taken from a shop in Jhasad Sultanpur village of Suroorpur block, one sample of sweet was also collected from a shop in Chirori village of Daurala block," said Singh.
The samples were collected, sealed and sent to Lucknow laboratory - the result of which will come in another month's time. The samples were sent to the capital city to ensure that there was no tampering is done in city-based laboratories.
"Four shops were issued notices after their kitchens were found dirty and food was being prepared in unhealthy conditions. Their kitchens were found to be in filthy conditions. They will be given a certain time period within which they have to improve the cleanliness situation at their bakery; failing which an inquiry will be set up against them, which can even have an impact over their license," said Singh.

Holi is here! But beware of food adulteration!

It’s that time of the year again! Holi is on its way! This colorful festival brings with it an end to the winter chills, and heralds a new beginning with the advent of spring. This is a time for merriment and spreading festive cheer and color among friends and family.
Holi also means mouth-watering treats like Gujiya, Thandai, Peda and Matthi. Who can imagine Holi without these sweet delights? These come part-and-parcel with the Holi festivities. Thandaiis one of the most popular drinks during Holi and we will discuss the various ingredients, mode of adulteration etc. of this drink.
Thandai: The cool refreshing Holi drink
Thandai, as the name suggests, means “coolant”. Why is it called so? Because the key ingredients like milk, nuts, herbs and spices helps to cool the body by balancing the heat in the body during hot summers. Thandai is a very popular summer drink, and especially during Holi, it is made with bhang, which is derived from Cannabis. This very intoxicating ingredient elevates the spirit of Holi to a new height. However, this ingredient is optional, and is not generally included in the recipe of Thandai, when it is consumed as a summer drink.
What goes into making Thandai?
Thandai is made-up of the following ingredients:
• Full-fat milk (boiled and cooled)
• Water
• Powdered sugar
• Freshly ground black pepper (Kalimirch)
• Saffron (Kesar) strands
• Almonds (blanched and peeled)
• Pistachios (blanched and peeled)
• Cashew nuts
• Cinnamon
• Poppy seeds (Khus-Khus)
• Fennel seeds (Saunf)
• Cardamom (Elaichi) powder
• Rose petals
How can Thandai be adulterated?
Thandai can be adulterated by essentially using inferior quality ingredients, some of which are highlighted below:
Milk: The major and most essential ingredient is milk. Milk can be adulterated by adding starch, which gives it a thick, rich texture. The milk can be tested by boiling a diluted sample in a test tube, cooling, and adding a drop of iodine solution. Blue color indicates starch contamination. Importantly, adulteration of the milk will spoil the quality and rich taste, for which Thandai is famous. It is also very important that the milk is boiled and then cooled before use. This will get rid of all germs that may be present in the milk.
Water:It is essential that the water used for preparing Thandai is pure, potable water. Any contamination of the water will lead to stomach upsets, and therefore ruin the festivities and fun associated with Holi. If in doubt, boil the water, then cool it before preparingThandai.
Sugar:You might be surprised to know that powdered sugar and be adulterated with chalk powder or white sand, which can cause severe stomach disorders.You can check by adding sugar to water and stirring. Pure sugar will dissolve, while any impurities will remain undissolved.
Black pepper: Whole black pepper corns can be contaminated with papaya seeds. A simple way to check is to put the black pepper corns in alcohol. Mature black pepper corns will sink while papaya seeds, if present, will float.
Artificial colors and flavors: Thandai can be adulterated with non-permitted colors/flavors by flouting the FSSAI guidelines. For example,Saffron (Kesar) is sometimes included and the declaration on the labelis often used by the Food Business Operators (FBO) to mislead the consumers, when actually artificial colors are used instead. Therefore, it is advisable to buy these ingredients from a reliable outlet.
What can you do to protect yourself?
Buy from a reliable outlet only:If you intend to buy Thandai mix from the market, be sure to buy a reputed brand from a reliable retail outlet. This will save you trouble from buying a spurious product. It is important that you check the date of manufacture and expiry date.
Be extra careful with ready-made Thandai:If you can’t resist having ready-made Thandai,you should be cautious. Buy from a sweet shop in your locality that you know is reliable and sells good quality sweets. Ensure that the sweet shop is clean and free from flies. Don’t go for brightly colored and exotically flavoredThandai, as these may contain non-permitted artificial colors and flavors.Preferably choose a regular one, but check that it’s fresh and doesn’t have an “off” odor.

Who’ll check safety of foods in Kashmir markets?

FTL lacks equipment, infrastructure, manpower; No mechanism in place to check pesticides, dangerous metals in water, foods
The abysmally poor food testing mechanism in Kashmir is allowing consumption of dangerous eatables by people, with officials failing to address the problem that is assuming alarming proportions, stakeholders said on Monday. The adulterated food is leading to multiple diseases among people, including cancer whose rate had doubled in the Valley in the past less than a decade.
According to sources, the Valley’s lone Food Testing Laboratory at Dalgate here is “good for nothing.” The so-called Laboratory has archaic equipment while archaic methods are put into practice to test samples of foods sent by the field staff, said a source, privy to the functioning of the FTL.
The source said foods and mineral water certified at the Lab as ‘fit for consumption’ aren’t tested for presence of pesticides. “This lab cannot even detect microbial growth in food samples as there is no microbiology section therein. There is no set-up to test the presence of heavy metals in food or water,” the source said.
According to some officials, the Srinagar Food Testing Laboratory gave a clean chit to Maggi Noodles last year when reports of its contamination emerged across India. “This lab declared it as ‘safe’ for consumption. However, samples of this noodle lifted from Kashmir markets were sent for testing to Kolkata Central Laboratory—a Government of India-designated lab for food testing—and the results of tests conducted there showed that these samples had dangerous levels of lead and Mono-Sodium Glutamate (MSG), which made it highly dangerous for consumption,” an official said.
He said: “We have no infrastructure to test for MSG, lead, or other contaminants. Our reports are ‘good’ for a few basic tests only.”
He said the officials “sometimes see mineral water with naked eyes and touch food samples” to give their “satisfactory reports.”
Sources said the Laboratory premises is littered with bottles of packaged water— lifted by the field staff for testing—but no testing is done.
“In water, the commonest contaminations could be pesticides that could have leached from fields into water bodies or underground waters. The other concern could be presence of germs due to contamination of a water body due to human or animal excreta getting into the sources,” said a doctor in Kashmir.
But the Laboratory, according to the source, is ill-equipped to test the “highly dangerous contaminations of heavy metals such as lead, mercury or arsenic.” “Bottled water testing in our laboratory is as good as checking water by naked eyes. There is no scientific analysis that water is subjected to,” said a Food Safety Officer.
In 2015, while the government procured HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) equipment for detecting presence of pesticides in water and food samples, the same is unused for want of trained technicians and Analytic Standards Material—the consumables needed to carry out pesticide detection tests.
While there has been a debate in the Supreme Court on punishing milk adulterators with death penalty, in Kashmir, milk sample testing is limited to quantity of fat and non-fat solids and addition of water, according to official sources.
Caustic soda, a common chemical added to milk for increasing its shelf-life goes undetected, they said.
“Some years back, the presence of detergents in some milk samples that made it unfit and dangerous for consumption was detected by the Central Lab Kolkata. However, this was a rare case. Very few samples are sent to the Central Lab for testing due to paucity of funds in the department. And, although milk samples are lifted for testing, the results are but an eye-wash as the department accepts that only a ‘few parameters’ can be checked at the Laboratory,” the official sources disclosed.
The presence of colors in foods has been the most covered aspect of food safety. Although the state is inadequately equipped to handle such cases also, some raids on food outlets and manufacturers recently in Kashmir revealed that dangerous colors meant for industrial use were being added to the foods.
“Dyes such as Tartrazine, Mentanil Yellow, Rhodamine B and Sudan III that are used to dye fabrics were being added to food. These colors have been listed as dangerous chemicals that have been linked to many types of tumors. Many of these chemicals are known to be carcinogens, such as Tartrazine and Sudan III have been found to cause cancers and gene mutations,” a doctor said.
In 2015, the Food Safety Department issued a couple of public announcements to ‘watch out for artificial ripening chemicals’ (sic) in food. The commonest ripening agent, calcium carbide—according to sources—has been found at many ‘fruit mandis’ but nothing has been done, an official said.
Inadequate market checking by the staff and poor infrastructure in place forces FSO to rely on material evidence in case of artificial ripening.
“Only if we find that calcium carbide has been stored at the fruit or vegetable wholesale market, we book the defaulters. There is no testing facility to check for this chemical in edibles,” an official at the Food Safety Organization said.
As per the Food Safety and Standards Association of India (FSSAI), artificial ripening agents such as calcium carbide—used in gas welding—has “strong carcinogenic properties.” Calcium carbide is also often laced with dangerous heavy metals such as arsenic.
Infrastructure aside, the Food Safety Organisation is dismally short of manpower. Out 17 sanctioned technical staffers, only three are in place.
Greater Kashmir has learnt that there are two posts of Food Analysts and three posts of Assistant Food Analysts sanctioned for the Srinagar Laboratory, but all of these are vacant.
13 posts of lab attendants are also lying vacant in the department, sources said.
DrSaleem Khan, Head of the Community Medicine at SMHS Hospital, said safe food is key to a healthy society. “We need to understand that food safety is a major health concern. We cannot let pesticide-laced food items being consumed freely. These chemicals are wreaking havoc with developing bodies and brains,” he said.
Commissioner of Food Safety in J&K, Dr MK Bhandari accepted that food testing in state needs to be strengthened.
“We have already started the process and submitted some proposals. In 2016-17, our focus would be strengthening manpower, testing with addition of new equipment and more funding for sampling,” he said.