| ARE THE AMENDMENTS CONSUMER FRIENDLY ? - - Ramesh Kumar Sharma |
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| Posted on Sun 01 Mar 2009 by admin (298 reads) |
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PFA 5TH AMENDMENT RULES : Consumer has right to know which food is unsafe through statutory warning “Non– Nutritive Food” on labels if nutritional information is misleading. This is the quintessence of amendments made in rule 32. But its weak point is that term “Non– Nutritive” is not explained. Further there is no mention whether printing of statutory warning on labels is compulsory on junk foods like pickle, papad, snacks, sweets and syrups. The Indian Food & Beverage Industry of worth Rs. 250 billion growing at about 25 % per annum is full of junk and traditional food articles containing exorbitantly high amounts of fats, sugar and salt. Just by eating 50gms of papad, sweets and snacks a consumer demanding 2500 kcals per day makes an input of almost 50% of Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) of salt, sugar and fats respectively. From the health point of view the food product 100gms of which provided more than 50% of RDA of fat or sugar or salt, would be called “unsafe” for the health. This discussion is in context of new PFA 5th amendment rules likely to come into force from 19th March 2009, vide the notification GSR (664) E released by Mr. G.Balachandran, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, which introduce the term “Non-Nutritive Food” without explanation. The Amendments made in “rule 32, clause (b) paragraph (2) list of ingredients sub- clause (vi) provided that (a)” are related to a provision of the exemption from printing nutritional information on a variety of food articles which is a necessity in the current scenario of food trade. The companies manufacturing following types of food articles are entitled for option to print or not to print nutritional information on labels— (A) Raw Agricultural Commodities like Wheat, Rice, Cereals, Spices, Spice Mixes, Herbs, Condiments, Table Salt, Sugar, Jaggery etc. (B) Non- Nutritive products, like - (i) Tea, Soluble Tea, Coffee, Soluble Coffee, Coffee-Chicory Mixture, Packaged Drinking Water, Packaged Mineral Water, Alcoholic Beverages. (ii) Single Ingredient Products, like whole or cut fruits, pre-packaged assorted vegetables, fruits, vegetables. (iii) Pickles, Papad (No explanation in rule why only two processed Ready To Eat Foods are exempted from printing Nutritional information. In my opinion the rule makers have presumed that if these are consumed in marginal quantity of less than 100g lead to an imbalanced diet.) (C) Food Products Served for Immediate Consumption, like foods served in hospitals, hotels or by food services vendors or halwais, foods shipped in bulk that is not for sale in that form to consumers. However this rule should stress for compulsory mention of statutory warning “Non- Nutritive Food” on particular food labels and make an explanation regarding the term ‘Non-Nutritive’. One such explanation for the term might be-- The food products that do not contain fats, proteins or carbohydrates appreciably or contains a non-fat, non-protein and non-carbohydrate source of calories like alcohol or are single ingredient products, or the food products, 100gm of which provide more than 20gm of fats or 3gm of common salt or 18gm of sugar, meeting out more than 50% of Daily Values of these nutrients in 2000 kcal diet. The rules seem reasonable at the moment because many of the processed Ready To Eat (RTE) foods in the market, like snacks, savories, sweets, ice-cream, chocolates, syrups, pickles papad etc. containing high fat, high salt or high sugar are unbalanced diet nature products while coffee, tea and wines are very low calorie or unusual calorie (non-fat, non-protein and non-carbohydrate) foods where statutory warning “Non-Nutritive” rather than misleading nutritional information is necessary. Consumers can easily detect an unsafe processed RTE Food by reading a statutory warning “Non- Nutritive Food” on the label. This should be like all Tobacco products where health warning is mandatory. Printing of nutritional information on the labels of such foods is really unnecessary. because the Indian consumer cannot even understand them. Therefore the rule should be made to print statutory warning on labels of Non- Nutritive processed RTE food, which will make amendments really consumer friendly. Article By: RAMESH KUMAR SHARMA Former Quality Control Chemist, Tilam Sangh Rajasthan, Bikaner-INDIA |
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