EATING OUT-A PERILOUS EXPERIENCE WITH DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES!

One of the few pleasures of life for a middle class family is visiting a decent restaurant for having a leisurely experience of consuming food preparations which are difficult to make at home. Besides such eating out practice enhances family values though it can make a big hole in the family budget, especially these days when all eateries have literally doubled or tripled the prices during the last two years. At least the customers patronizing the restaurants had the consolation the eating in these places will not endanger their lives because of the vigilance of the local civic authorities in regularly monitoring the safety of the foods served at these places. now comes the news from different parts of the country about the pathetic safety management in most places due to ill-planning on the part of FSSAI, the "apostle" of food safety measures in India. Here is a report from Chennai about the ground reality obtaining in many towns across Tamil Nadu vis-a-vis food safety vigilance activity.

"Eating out has become risky, with state health authorities not inspecting restaurants or carrying out checks on their kitchens for the past seven months. This has become a problem since perishables rot faster in the summer heat due to longer power cuts. After the responsibility of food safety was taken from municipal corporations and given to a special state food safety unit, monitoring has been consigned to the backburner. The newly-formed unit has been struggling with its organisation, training and logistics. "We are yet to begin taking samples or conducting raids in Chennai," said a food safety official in Chennai. "We are still registering eateries and setting up offices." According to the state health department, corporations stopped collecting samples for testing and raiding restaurants to check if they are conforming to quality specifications in August 2011. A Chennai corporation official estimates that it may have been nine months since samples were collected. Health experts and corporation officials say unscrupulous restaurateurs and manufacturers of food products could take advantage of the fact that no checks are being conducted. "With several hours of power cuts being imposed on the state every day, the absence of checks could be a problem as perishable goods are likely to spoil even faster," an official said. Officials say funding for the health department under the new Food Safety Act has begun only now, almost a year after the act was implemented. Even the state food commissioner is currently operating from the state homeopathy hospital without any support staff. Health department offices in other districts in the state have also been brought standstill, with the exception of Madurai and Coimbatore where officials recently started collecting samples for testing. "But we haven't begun taking samples yet," said a health department official in Tirunelveli. "Right now we our focus is on completing the registrations of over 12,000 small establishments in this district." Many other districts are awaiting release of funds and allotment of office space. In Coimbatore samples have been collected from three restaurants so far and two were found to be contaminated but the authorities were unable to prosecute them, added a local food officer. Food safety, until last year, was overseen as additional duties by health officers in city and town municipal corporations. Rules regarding food safety were covered by the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Now a new, more comprehensive, law is in place that has specific instructions for food packaging, ingredient display, hygiene and sanitary conditions".

Such reports are pouring in from different places across the country though from time to time assurances are given that things would improve and these are nothing but teething troubles experienced at the beginning of a new system. It is pathetic to hear such excuses from the Babus of FSSAI who were supposed to have been working on the Food Safety Bill since 2005! The citizen has a genuine right to ask how many more years it will take for the system to start clicking! In the mean time what will be the fate of the common man caught between the devil and the deep sea? Hoteliers must be a happy lot because they can compromise on investment on safety related activities with impunity! Of course there are many honest players among them who do not need the "stick" to enforce safety related rules as go by their conscience to fulfill their duty and obligation to their customers. Is it not ridiculous for the officials to claim that they are busy registering the eateries and therefore have no time for checking the hygiene and sanitation in these catering places?

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

FREQUENT EATING OUT-"INVITATION" TO OBESITY?

Eating out is a phenomenon associated with economic development which in turn influences the life styles of population. With women increasingly seeking work to augment family income, time spent in the kitchen is coming down dramatically and eating out is an inevitable choice. Of course food industry is also benefited by this socio-economic transformation as more and more consumers fall back on processed foods with high convenience factor. The catering industry world over is growing at a frenetic pace thanks to this trend. Under such circumstances very little attention is focused on the impact of such changes on the health of the population. Unfortunately the quality of foods served by eateries is not consumer-friendly, especially with regard to their impact on their health and many experts are attributing the cause of the emerging obesity epidemic among the population to eating out practices. Here is a take on this issue.

Obesity-promoting foods include sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, processed grains and trans fats — all cheap ways that restaurants add flavor. These foods lead to changes in blood sugar that cause cells to store food energy rather than burn it, said Buffington. Fat-fighting foods, she said, include good-quality proteins — such as unprocessed meat, chicken, fish, cheese, eggs, milk and beans — as well as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and essential fatty acids. On average, breakfast eaten away from home has fewer whole grains, while dinners away from home include fewer servings of vegetables, according to the USDA economic researchers. Mancino and her colleagues also noted that restaurant diners eat less well. "One meal out typically lowers diet quality enough to shift the average adult's diet from fair to poor on the Healthy Eating Index," she said. The index is the tool the USDA uses to measure diet quality. "When people eat out they tend to make poorer nutritional choices," said Mancino, "partly because people often associate eating out as a special occasion, or a time to splurge — even if eating out has become a routine."

It is true that policy makers are aware of this disturbing trend and efforts are made continuously to improve the health promoting value of restaurant foods through voluntary action by the industry. Believing that consumer is a responsible person with adequate awareness about ill effects of bad foods, restaurant sector is being persuaded to offer nutrition information to its customers who can pick and choose good foods. Such transparent practices hopefully will shift progressively the the quality of food preparations offered by the eateries to more healthy ones due to consumer pressure. It may be a Utopian dream but may be worth the effort. Blaming food industry or the catering sector does not take the Society any where and ultimately individual responsibility will have to come to the fore in eating balanced food whether at home or outside.

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