Is being poor an opportunity for the industry to make more money? Seems so in some countries

"Though every one knows that the quality of health is intricately linked to the nutritive value of food one eats, continuous attempts by the food corporates, especially in a country like the US, to feed the population with patently unhealthy high fat and high calorie products with practically zero nutrition are not being resisted by the policy makers. In stead, with their tremendous financial clout and lobbying muscle the fast food industry is trying to kill every challenge thrown at them by a series of small restaurants who offer better products. The latest attempt being tried in this direction involves a war of attrition through steep reduction in prices for many products offered by them, naturally tempting the most resolute consumer with honest intentions to eat only healthy foods! Here is a take on this alarming trend which must be nipped in the bud by whatever policy orchestrations the government can do so that small restaurants are not driven to extinction, snuffing out a healthy alternative to millions of low income consumers.

"THE NATION'S FAST-FOOD giants certainly weren't going to allow a new breed of smaller "fast-casual" chains to eat their lunch without taking action. The industry's fast-casual segment has steadily been winning over customers with products that typically are made with less fat and fewer processed ingredients than the legacy restaurants use. Over the next five years, most of the fast-food market's revenue growth is expected to come from these kinds of outlets — companies such as Panera Bread, Shake Shack, Cosi, and, yes, Chipotle. Instead of taking a cue from the modestly encouraging nutritional trend, fast-food's founding fathers have decided to counter the upstart competitors' higher quality by pitching quantity. They're doubling down on the same high-calorie strategies that for decades have, at least in part, helped make Americans overweight and unhealthy. McDonald's, Burger King, and others are running advertising campaigns that promote fat-rich meals at newly discounted prices. Wendy's started the feeding frenzy in October with a "4 for $4" deal that packages chicken nuggets, a bacon cheeseburger, a drink, and fries. McDonald's earlier this month introduced its "McPick 2," Burger King followed by hyping a $4 promotion that features five items, and Pizza Hut's $5 "Flavor Menu,"includes four 20-oz. sodas, and a Hershey's Triple Chocolate Brownie — "9 squares of warm, oven-fresh goodness." Faced with this kind of marketing onslaught, do fresh fruits and vegetables stand a chance? Many time-stressed Americans can't resist the temptation of relatively inexpensive prepared food they can grab at a drive-through window. And given the choice between spending $5 on food that fills the kids up, or buying a single organic tomato, it's understandable why a budget-conscious consumer might opt for the former. That behavior won't easily be changed. Making wholesome food more affordable and available has long posed a major challenge for health-policy makers. The reasons a burger and fries cost less than lettuce are many and complicated. Food-industry critics often start by pointing to the billions of dollars in federal subsidies that go to corn farmers. Corn is used to feed cattle and chickens, and to produce high fructose syrup. It's key to fast-food profits. "For the last 50 years we've worked on making corn as cheap as possible," says renowned food writer Michael Pollan, who is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. "Our agricultural policies are at war with our health policies and objectives." Realigning government priorities to encourage farm products with greater nutritional value might help tip the scales, but fresh-food advocates acknowledge that overhauling the subsidy system is politically daunting. "A handful of corporations control our food system from farm to fork," reads a statement on the website of Farm Aid, a nonprofit that backs the so-called Good Food Movement. Indeed. The food industry spends tens of millions of dollars annually on lobbying lawmakers to keep it that way. Lower-income people — many of whom work in fast-food restaurants — are often reliant on processed food out of necessity. Better choices are either not easily accessible, or they're too expensive. Improving the standing of those at the bottom of the economy would give them options. "It's a myth that low-income people don't want to eat healthy," says Pollan. "McDonald's allows many of them to eat meat who otherwise would not be able to afford to. For a lot of people, cheap food is keeping them whole." He suggests it's time to "change the calculus" on pricing. That could be accomplished by requiring fast-food companies to pay the true cost of producing their products, while adding financial incentives — perhaps through subsidies — for commercial sellers and buyers of nutritious food. That could help level out price differences between good and bad food, minimizing cost as the primary factor in consumers' purchasing decisions. More emphasis also should be placed on the savings that could be realized throughout the nation's health care system by turning fast food into an occasional indulgence instead of a diet staple. One example: Obesity increases the chances of developing diabetes, a disease that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated cost about $245 billion to treat in 2012 alone. The opposition to all of these measures is practiced and well-funded, as evidenced by the barrage of ads. For some corporations, Americans' poor health is good business.  The previously slumping McDonald's on Monday exceeded analysts' expectations by reporting strong sales for the last quarter, mainly because it began offering breakfast all day. That sent the company's stock up at the start of trading. Wall Street, like most of the country, can't resist a Sausage McMuffin."

Many experts believe that the giant corporates selling unhealthy foods are able to sustain their business for long time because of their deep pockets and economic resilience in absorbing financial losses. Besides the mainstay raw material used by the meat industry, Corn is heavily subsidized by the American government in the name of supporting the farmers which is enabling them to make their products at ridiculously low prices. Compare this to the dilemma of the small players who have to buy healthy but costly food ingredients like fruits and vegetables which naturally pushes the cost of the prepared products and unfair competition from low cost junk foods makes their existence precarious. It is time government there comes out with a policy to heavily tax such products with proven unhealthy credentials such as high sugar and high fat containing products and no dietary fiber. Such foods must be put on a par with tobacco when it comes to taxing and there is salvation only if this issue is tackled fearlessly without succumbing to pressures from the "bad food" industry.

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

Enhancing flavor of Tomatoes-Modified packing house practice

Tomato is one of the most liked vegetables, its use in many preparations and as a salad component being universal. In many diets and customary eating it is consumed almost every day across the world. Besides being a nutritious food, it also enriches flavors of many cooked foods and is a standard component of a good salad. No wonder the tomato paste industry is well established, catering to the needs of millions of consumers who find it is a convenient product with many application potential. A curious question many people find it difficult to answer is whether tomato is a fruit or a vegetable? As its sugar content is very low, unlike that in fruits, tomato is legally classified as a vegetable but still many people consider it as a fruit. What does a consumer expect from tomato? The crisp texture, attractively smooth appearance, intense color, juiciness and mild flavor. In contrast the tomato industry from growers to handlers, distributors and processors look for other more important qualities which include hard fruit resistant to damage during storage and transportation, longer shelf life and higher solid contents. Interestingly tomato production is concentrated in China and India, both together accounting for more than 30% of the global production of 170 million tons per year and therefore development of new varieties with better characteristics and yield is rather limited in these countries. In contrast advance countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland lead the productivity race with average productivity in the range of 430 to 480 tons per hectare. The path breaking research in evolving a genetically modified variety called FlarSavr took place in the US which was a dream come true for the industry though consumers never accepted this GM product.in nineteen nineties. Almost 75% of the tomato produced is consumed in the fresh form which reflects the importance of delivering farm fresh tomatoes to the consumer with least time delay and minimum damage. According to a group of scientists working in the US commercially marketed tomato does not possess good flavor because of the practices followed by the industry which do not allow the metabolic system in the crop to function and generate optimum flavor. A new approach is being suggested to modify the handling practices that will enhance the flavor very significantly. Read further below:  

"The distinct flavor of tomatoes is due to a cocktail of chemicals produced by the fruits as they ripen, but, according to the team that includes the USDA, the Agricultural Research Service, and the University of Florida, conventional storage methods inhibit these flavors. If tomatoes seem more flavorsome when bought from a farm stand, that's because they're being sold in the ideal condition – fully ripe and immediately after picking. However, commercially grown tomatoes need to be shipped hundreds, if not thousands of miles to reach market along with delays in packing and unpacking. Shipping ripe tomatoes over any distances risks unacceptable levels of spoilage, so the tomatoes are picked green, treated with ethylene gas to induce ripening, and then chilled for shipping. According to team leader Jinhe Bai, this chilling prevents flavor compounds, such as 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, 2-methylbutanal, and 2-phenylethanol from forming and the tomatoes end up with a watery taste. To avoid this, the team added an extra step. Instead of sending Florida-grown green tomatoes straight on to chilling, the team plunged them into 125° F (52° C) water for five minutes, then cooled them to room temperature before a final chilling to between 41° and 55° F (5° and 13° C), which is the standard shipping temperature. Compared to a control group, the team found that the treated tomatoes had more smell and flavor, as well as higher levels of flavor compounds. According to Bai, this is due to the heat treatment regulating certain ripening enzymes and activating the production of a protein that makes the tomatoes tolerant of cell decay. "Chilling suppresses production of oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur-containing heterocyclic compounds, ketones, alcohols and aldehydes, including 13 important aroma components of tomato flavor," says Bai."But hot water-treated fruit actually produced higher concentrations of these important aroma contributors, even with subsequent chilling." The team is currently testing the technique at various stages of ripeness to see how it affects flavor compound production. Bai says the next step is to determine which method is the most effective before offering it to food processing firms. In addition, they're trying alternatives to hot water, such as methyl salicylate (wintergreen oil), which is an anti-fungal fumigant, and 1-methylcyclopropene when the tomatoes are at the slightly riper green/pink stage to make the fruit more tolerant to cell decay when at higher storage temperatures."

Even to day why are people preferring to buy wine ripened tomato or directly from farm gates offering fresh ripened crops? Simply because these crops possess much better flavor compared to that bought from a supermarket. As explained by the authors of the above study, development of flavor from a cocktail of chemicals present in tomato depends on temperature. The commercial practice, heavily dependent on chilling to low temperatures for long distance transportation in the distribution chain to prevent physical damage, does not allow the inherent enzyme systems to act on the dormant precursors for conversion into the characteristic flavorful substances. The heat shock method developed by them is claimed to be able to "wake up" the metabolic activity which sets of the process of generating flavor substances. Since the method is very simple there should not be any logistical problem to incorporate this step into the currently practiced protocol. Hot water treatment has the additional advantage of sanitizing the product to some extent by killing some of the undesirable microbes. Way back in nineteen sixties a similar heat treatment was developed in India for mangoes for reducing microbial spoilage during the long process of ripening which takes more than a week. If the new findings are confirmed and accepted by the industry there could be a dramatic increase in the flavor quality of tomatoes consumed world over.

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

Pre-emptive research -Collaborative Intra-industry public interest projects

Collaborative research generally conveys an impression that such projects involve collaboration between the industry and government funded research organizations including universities. In most of the existing models industry approaches such public organizations with a problem or an issue or product development need, offering funding to carry out the work and often they demand exclusivity at least for a limited period so that they have a lead time while using the results over their competitors. A big advantage is that the institutions doing the research have a number of specialists belonging to different disciplines and elaborate infrastructural facilities to do a better job than doing a solo research within the captive laboratories of the industry. But the great mistrust that exists between industry and public research scientists generally discourages them to go to such organizations fearing leakage of the results to others. It now appears that industry has realized their limitations, to better appreciate the need for carrying out research in specialist scientific organizations in solving some of the common problems faced by all of them and results of such collaborative efforts benefiting all of them. Such common programs can give impetus to promotion of growth of a group of products made by all of them. Most critical is the product safety which is the biggest concern for all consumers. If the lead taken by the chocolate industry is any indication such mutually beneficial research endeavors can be expected to be common in other sub-sectors of food industry also in the coming years. Read further below:.    

"Colonel Sanders' original document for KFC's secret recipe is reportedly guarded in a safe placed inside a Mission Impossible-style motion-detecting vault. Jay Bush of Bush's Baked Beans is the only one who knows its signature spice blend other than the family dog, Duke. The recipe for Coca-Cola is tucked inside an Atlanta bank vault accessible to only two top executives. These are billion-dollar secrets, and any major food industry player has something similar. But now, a few food companies are trying something different. Instead of protecting trade secrets, they are handing the keys over to their competitors. Together, companies are investing in large research projects that would be difficult to fund on their own — then sharing the results with the public. What would possess a multi-billion dollar company to spend money on private research only to turn around and give it away? In the case of chocolate, there's a good reason to cooperate: Companies need to keep cacao plants alive to sell more product. It's a shared goal. Cocoa plants make money for everyone, from the biggest multinational corporations to the 6.5 million farmers who grow them in countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. But the plant has been plagued by pests and disease. Now, climate change also threatens the global chocolate supply. A study of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, which produce roughly 50 percent of the world's chocolate, found that growing areas will "decrease quite seriously" by 2050 due to a rise in temperature. The group that mapped the cocoa genome hopes that making the sequence public will provide researchers with a tool for more efficient research and accelerated breeding of new cultivars. Because if there's no chocolate for anyone to sell, competition for the best candy bar doesn't really matter. This is called pre-competitive research, and food companies like Nestlé, Kellogg, and Mars have all taken advantage of it. In 2011, five food industry partners joined together with the Netherland's TI Food and Nutrition (an organization set up to do research that's good for industry's bank accounts, funded both by the food industry and government) on a four-year project to study the effects of probiotics in the human gut. In 2010, Mars, IBM, and a number of other companies, nonprofits, and academic institutions mapped the cocoa genome. In September Mars and 60 partners unveiled the Global Food Safety Center, a state-of-the-art research facility based in Beijing, China. Mars in particular seems devoted to the idea of research for the greater good — not something you'd expect from a company known mostly for selling chocolates and gum. Yet not only is the idea of "mutuality" or creating shared benefits from its business practices written into its "five founding principles," it actually seems to be more than a buzzword. It may not be obvious at first, but food safety is a common imperative for these companies. "Nobody wins by having safer products, but everybody loses when the industry isn't regarded as safe," said David Crean, vice president of Corporate Research and Development at Mars. Food safety scares can have monumental effects on demand for a product. In 1996, a cyclospora outbreak in the U.S. and Canada caused by Guatemalan raspberries decimated the industry. Four years later, only six raspberry farms remained of 85 from before 1996, and demand was still at only one-third of 1996 levels. Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that ongoing food safety issues in China have led to growing demand for imported or organic foods in metropolitan areas like Beijing or Shanghai. There are problems with food safety "all along the supply chain," according to Crean, which makes it an issue that can only be solved through collaboration. "That's not been the traditional approach and [it's] one of the reasons we haven't gotten as far," he added. Another reason the traditional approach — often, universities doing public research — hasn't made a dent is that the work is slow and often decentralized. One goal of the Global Food Safety Center is to get a "critical mass of expertise in one place," Crean said. While Crean was giving a tour recently, a partner said he would have had to work with three different labs to get the same collaboration the center has in one room. Putting chemistry and microbiology labs in the same building with a staff of 30 dedicated researchers plus rotating guests will speed up the process considerably. One advantage of pre-competitive research is that it's often focused on solving a problem rather than selling products. Industry-backed studies have recently come under fire for using academics to deflect criticism. Food policy expert Marion Nestle has an entire section — and it's not a small one — on her blog "Food Politics" devoted to academic studies whose findings fall in favor of their financial sponsor. And funding bias, as the phenomenon is known, is caused both by the way the studies themselves are set up and by certain topics inviting more funding to begin with. In other words, companies won't give money to researchers likely to make their products look bad."

India has to learn a lot from this development scenario when it comes to food research as truly indigenous industry has not much of a capacity in carrying out research, that too involving high end scientific inputs. There are a score of universities and R & D institutions mostly funded by government agencies like CSIR, ICAR, DST, Dept of Biotechnology, Ministry of Food processing with unlimited resources at their disposal. What is needed is a dialogue between the researchers and the industry captains to identify priority issues requiring consolidated and integrated multidisciplinary scientific inputs. For example if trans fatty acids are posing great hazard in many food products, there has to be an industry funded project that will lick the problem in no time benefiting all those manufacturing fried and baked food products. Similarly lead contamination is a real problem in many products and a common project supported by the industry should be able to find out the treason for such contamination and ways and means to overcome it..It is very difficult to imagine whether the industry giants, both native as well as multinationals will come forward for such collaborative efforts, given the mutual suspicion between industry and the scientific community engage in food research in the country.    

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

GRAS Vs GRAS-The great food additives deception on the consumer

Can any normal person be proud to be an American to day when it comes to food safety and medical services prevalent in that country? Of course on many counts Americans can hold their heads high due to their hard working, generally honest and efficient way of life styles developed over a period of two centuries. With economic might and free enterprise spirit, there appears to be a shift in the power from the average citizen to the military-industry complex that emerged after world war II. This is more than amplified by the power and economic muscle of vested interests that lord over the citizen to day. The nexus between powerful industrial lobbies with least concern for the well being of their people and vote garnering politicians is too apparent in every sphere of activity in that country. Read the report below about the behavior of food industry in that country and how effective or ineffective is the food safety vigilance system there putting the health of the citizens in great jeopardy. Reference here is about the so called GRAS system of allowing hundreds of chemicals with questionable safety record being allowed to be used by the food safety administration agency in the US. 

"When President Eisenhower signed the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, he established a regulatory program intended to restore public confidence that chemicals added to foods are safe. In the intervening 56 years, the basic structure of the law has changed little. However, the regulatory programs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established to implement the law have fallen behind over time as the agency strived to keep up with the explosion in the number and variety of chemicals in food, and to manage its huge workload with limited resources. The 1958 law exempted from the formal, extended FDA approval process common food ingredients like vinegar and vegetable oil that are "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). It may have appeared reasonable at the time, but that exemption has been stretched into a loophole that has swallowed the law. The exemption allows manufacturers to make safety determinations that the uses of their newest chemicals in food are safe without notifying the FDA. The agency's attempts to limit these undisclosed GRAS determinations by asking industry to voluntarily inform the FDA about their chemicals are insufficient to ensure the safety of our food in a global marketplace with a complex food supply. Furthermore, no other developed country in the world has a system like GRAS to provide oversight of food ingredients. Why Did Companies Forgo the FDA Notification Review Process  Because of the apparent frequency with which companies make GRAS safety determinations without telling FDA, NRDC undertook a study to better understand companies' rationale for not participating in FDA's voluntary notification program. First, we built a list of companies and the chemicals they made. Then we reviewed public records, the company websites, and trade journals to identify chemicals that appear to be marketed in the U.S. pursuant to an undisclosed GRAS determination, i.e. without notification to the FDA. All told, we were able to identify 275 chemicals from 56 companies that appear to be marketed for use in food based on undisclosed GRAS safety determinations. This is likely the tip of the iceberg -- we previously published in an industry journal an estimate that there have been 1,000 such undisclosed GRAS determinations. For each chemical we identified in this study, we did not find evidence that FDA had cleared them. In addition, using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we obtained from the FDA copies of communications between the agency and companies who voluntarily sought agency review of their GRAS determinations. We found that this glimpse into the review process shows that often the agency has had serious concerns about the safety of certain chemicals, and that companies sometimes make safety decisions with little understanding of the law or the science. As discussed later, companies found their chemicals safe for use in food despite potentially serious allergic reactions, interactions with common drugs, or proposed uses much greater than company-established safe doses. On those occasions when the FDA is asked to review a GRAS determination, the agency rejects or triggers withdrawal of about one in five notices. Moreover, the public has even less information about the many substances with GRAS determinations that are never submitted to the agency in the first place -- and which may pose a much greater danger. It is often virtually impossible for the public to find out about the safety -- or in many cases even the existence -- of these chemicals in our food. NRDC believes that"Generally Recognized as Secret" rather than "Generally Recognized as Safe" is a better name for the GRAS loophole. A chemical cannot be "generally recognized as safe" if its identity, chemical composition, and safety determination are not publicly disclosed. If the FDA does not know the identity of these chemicals and does not have documentation showing that they are safe to use in food, it cannot do its job. In an increasingly global marketplace where many additives and foods are imported into the United States, this loophole presents an unsettling situation that undermines public confidence in the safety of food and calls into question whether the FDA is performing its duty to protect public health. The problem is rooted in a law adopted in 1958 when Eisenhower was president and Elvis was drafted. It is time for the FDA and Congress to fix the problems. In the meantime, consumers need to demand that their grocery stores and their favorite brands sell only those food products with ingredients that the FDA has found to be safe."

One has to be sympathize with the condition prevailing in that country in spite of stringent laws that exist on the statute books. No where else in the world the food manufacturers are given free hand in deciding what chemical is to be added based on flimsy scientific data sourced from within or from doubtful sources. It is true to redefine GRAS as secret list of chemicals used by the industry without proving they are safe. Can this continue for long? Citizens must raise their voice against such an obnoxious system that controls their lives. Compared to USA, EU countries are some what better off as there is better governance as far as safety monitoring is concerned. It is time that all GRAS additives are brought under a critical scanner and compel the industry to use only those found to be safe through impeccable scientific scrutiny.

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

Are some foods more addictive than others? New findings with far reaching implications!

Can some foods be compared to alcohol, tobacco or psychotropic substances from the point of view of creating addiction?. A significant number of experts are veering around to the view that there are a few foods being manufactured by the food processing industry which are capable of inducing addiction and one suspects that the industry also is fully aware of this, exploiting this knowledge to develop more and more such foods for catering to the consumers vulnerable to addiction. If this is true can the industry get away with such sinister designs and will not they be liable for class action before the judiciary for suppressing such an evidence? We cannot forget how the cigarette industry was caught doing the same and what penalty they had to pay running into billions of dollars as reparation for destroying the health and lives of millions of people in the US. Food technology has evolved into a fine art to day and creating a food with right proportion of sugar, fat and flavor is very easy. This is what the industry seems to be doing world over to improve their bottom line! In such a situation what needs to be done to reduce such addiction which is playing with lives of people in countries like the US as manifested by obesity, diabetes, hyper tension, kidney diseases etc? Here is a critique on this important issue that is worth reading. 

"Are Americans in denial about symptoms of food addiction? But are these foods addictive?  Michael Moss, author of Salt, Sugar Fat, states: "I tried to use the "A" word sparingly because the industry argues convincingly that food lacks some of the technical definitions of addiction and narcotics. They prefer words like alluring, craveable, smackable. But the aim is the same, which is to create the perfect formula and amounts of salt, sugar and fat that will send us over the moon and make their products irresistible." (2) Moss reports, "There are estimates, of course, but we're averaging something like twice the recommended amount of salt. The best estimate of sugar is 70 pounds a year. We're averaging 11 percent of our calories [from] saturated fat, the bad one linked to heart disease, and the recommendation is to get it down to 7 percent or less." (2) New study reports that highly processed foods are shown to be addictive, leaving consumers with substance dependence symptoms and behaviors. The University of Michigan is hoping that their new study will help consumers make more informed decisions. The new study confirms what many people have suspected:highly processed foods like chocolate, pizza and French fries are the most addictive (3) This is the first study to examine which foods can truly be implicated in food addiction. This has recently become a growing interest due to rising obesity epidemic. Prior studies with animals showed that highly processed foods or foods with added fat and refined carbohydrates trigger addictive-like eating behavior.  Clinical studies performed with human subjects indicated that individuals eating processed foods meet the criteria for substance dependence. (3) U-M assistant professor, Ashley Gearhardt, explains that highly processed foods are known to be preferred for their taste, it has remained unknown whether these food elicit an addiction response. Unprocessed foods such as brown rice and salmon have not been associated with addictive behaviors. (3) Erica Schulte, lead author, explains that individuals with symptoms of food addiction or higher body mass indexes report greater difficulties with processed foods. "If properties of some foods are associated with addictive eating for some people, this may impact nutrition guidelines, as well as public policy initiatives such as marketing these foods to children," Schulte said. (3) Nicole Avena, co-author of the study, reports, "This is a first step towards identifying specific foods, and properties of foods, which can trigger this addictive response," she said. "This could help change the way we approach obesity treatment. It may not be a simple matter of 'cutting back' on certain foods, but rather, adopting methods used to curtail smoking, drinking and drug use." (3)"

To be fair to the industry it must be argued that they have to look for decent returns for their investments and efforts in the form profits by creating a market for their products and after all they can sell only products consumers demand. Whether one likes it or not, organoleptic quality of foods has been the single most driving force as far as product development programs are concerned and launching a product is invariably precede by a market acceptability study trying to gauge the reaction of the consumer. Until recently consumer always decided whether a product is acceptable based on his perception regarding over all flavor including color, taste and texture and only now health aspects are coming into focus with demands being made on the industry to make healthier foods. If foods like chocolates, pizza and others with high sugar or fat or salt content are really addictive as being made out to be, there must be restrictions against their manufacture and marketing. Can any country treat foods like alcohol and regulate their sale without impinging on the rights of the consumer to decide what he wants to eat from among the products that pass the quality and safety standards prevailing there? One has to only recall the experience of the government in New York which tried to restrict the size of bottle sizes of soda which was rejected by the courts there as violation of personal freedom! Similarly look at the resistance that is emerging in the US for a simple proposal to include extent of added sugar to a product by the processing industry on the nutritional label and it is unlikely that similar efforts in reining in food industry will ever succeed!

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

Water needs-Food industry Vs Agriculture, opposing pressures!

Soda which is the international name given to sweetened fizz drinks like Coke and Pepsi is gain in troubled 'waters"; literally! These beverages are focus of attention from health critics as well as conservationists who blame the bottlers for over utilization of water and environmental pollution through the sludge they let out. Farmers are agitating wherever the soda plants are located because of their fear that such massive extraction of ground water causes water shortage affecting their livelihood. Interestingly the two soda giants are also courting controversy in their own country, USA because of the widely held perception that their products sweetened with sugar cause many health disorders including obesity. Because of their vice-like grip on the political class that rule the country, they are never restrained from hawking their "potion", especially to young kids. In India the Delhi Government has laid red carpet for foreign investors in the hope that their investments will generate significant employment in the country. Unfortunately the impact of this open arm policy on the common man is never kept in mind when such FDI proposals are cleared. The Coke bottling plant to be set up in Gujarat is in the news recently because of the reckless policy of the state government in allotting huge volume of water from Narmada river which is supposed to be meant for agriculture sector. Here are the details of the drama unfolding in that state and the common man is just a mute spectator on the sidelines unable to do any thing to stop this loot of public water resources.

"Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is finding itself in troubled waters, again. After rows over water usage at its plants in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, it is now the turn of its Gujarat factory.Congress leader Ahmed Patel has questioned the Gujarat government's decision to allot to a Coca-Cola plant over three million litres of water a day from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, even as many villages in Sanand go without water.In a letter to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on October 10, Patel expressed concern over her government's September decision and noted that the dam had been built to provide water to drought-prone parts of North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch. Patel highlighted concerns raised by non-government organisations and citizens' groups over the alleged daily effluent discharge of 450 kilolitres by the plant, which executives of the multinational beverage company said were baseless because the unit was located in a no-effluent industrial cluster. Coca-Cola India executives did not want to get drawn into the controversy. They said the company had taken all approvals for the plant and any response to Patel's letter should come from the Gujarat chief minister, to whom it was addressed. The plant, being set up by Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, the largest bottling partner of Coca-Cola India, will be the company's second unit in Gujarat. Coca-Cola has a plant in Goblej in Kheda district, its second-largest in the country after the Dasna unit in Uttar Pradesh. The Gujarat government has allotted 185,000 square metres to the company to make sweetened aerated drinks like Coke, Sprite, Fanta and Thums Up".

Governments never seem to learn any lesson from past experiences as evidenced by the attitude of the Gujarat Government in allocating precious natural resources especially after the humiliating retreat of this soft rink giant from Kerala a few years ago because of the same problem. Politician-industry nexus is not new in India and diversion of water from dams built for irrigation to sugar mills and breweries in Maharashtra is another example of this nebulous practice. A moot question that the country faces is whether a health debilitating beverage industry can be given priority over food production when half the population in the country does not have adequate food to satisfy their hunger? No body is denying the fact that food industry is invariably water guzzlers because huge quantity of water is absolutely necessary to maintain safety and quality of the end products. But locating them in proximity to irrigated agricultural lands cannot be condoned. It is not understandable why these synthetic beverage manufacturers are forced to make nutritionally better products rather than easily salable junk foods like potato chips and sugar sweetened drinks. If this trend continues India may be following the foot steps of America where one in three citizens are obese with bloated bodies spending billions of dollars for treating their diseases!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
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Changing face of cooking oil business in India-Shift from loose vending to branded products

Cooking oil is an essential component in the budget of every hold in India. Unlike in western countries most Indians consume home fried snacks in stead of depending on the products offered by the industry. Depending on the region preference varies and some of the commonly used oils include that extracted from groundnut, coconut, sunflower seed, sesame,  rice bran, maize germ, soybean, etc but critical shortage of domestic oils during the last 3 decades set a trend of importing palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia in sizable quantities. To day the number one cooking oil is Palm oil and its fractionated version Palmolein with most people switching over to it for economic reasons. till 1990 oil was packed in square tins of 18 liter size for retail dispensing in consumer's container. Due to development high function plastic packing materials loose vending started declining and to day more than two third of the oil sold in the market is in plastic unit packs under different brands. Probably Indian consumer embraced plastic packed oils because of rampant adulteration of cooking oil on a massive scale by unscrupulous traders and fraudsters trying to make a fast buck. Here is a report on Indian oil market as it is being developed by a few national players and some strong regional brands. 

"There has been a surge in consumer preference for branded and packed edible oil, as compared to the traditional loose-sold variety. In 2012-13, sales of the former category in the country overall rose 30 per cent. And, the share of branded and packed oil in the overall cooking oil segment shot up to 60 per cent from 45 per cent in the previous year. The packed/branded category has a strong presence among regional companies. The share of national brands continue to remain between 10 and 12 per cent. Consumer awareness of the benefits of using packaged oil from a known brand and the ability to afford the higher price for this (termed 'increased financial scalability' in trade jargon) appears to be the reasons for the shift. Also, the difference in prices has narrowed. "The attraction towards branded and packed products is increasing rapidly. Branded and packed edible oil has replaced the loose commodity in urban areas," said Siraj Choudhary, chairman of Cargill India, producer of edible oil brands, such as Gemini and Sweekar and the Indian arm of the US commodity giant, Cargill International. Manufacturers have also started retailing the commodity with value additions, such as promises of various health benefits over the loose ones. Ruchi Soya Industries, the biggest in the branded category, with Sunrich, Nutrela and Mahakosh as leading brands, has posted 17.4 per cent growth in branded edible oil sales, at Rs 5,413 crore in 2012-13. In the fourth quarter, it registered 10.75 per cent growth in branded edible oil sales at 2.1 million tonnes (mt) as compared to 1.9 mt in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Says Dinesh Shahra, managing director, "We witnessed a staggering growth in branded sales in the last two quarters. Our focus on the growth of these has helped in achieving better margins." A recent paper presented by Dorab Mistry, director, Godrej International, estimates India's edible oil consumption at 17.6 mt in the oil year of November 2012-October 2013, as against 16.6 mt in the previous year. He forecasts per capita edible oil consumption at 13.9 kg in 2012-13, up from 13.4 kg in the previous year. "Shifting is happening very rapidly from loose to branded and packed edible oil, which can be attributed to a combination of factors, including growing prosperity of the middle class and narrowing of the premium over loose products," said Atul Chaturvedi, chief executive officer of Adani Wilmar, producer of the 'Fortune' brand. The premium for branded and packed products has been narrowing in recent years, with the difference between packed and loose varieties now Rs 10-15 a kg and Rs 15-20 a kg between the loose and branded ones. Branded edible oil was earlier Rs 30 - 40 a kg costlier."

The cooking oil prices are escalating practically every day in spite of galloping imports of palm oil products and there is no sign that this trend is showing any abatement. Imagine some of them like Coconut oil and Sesame oil costing more than Rs 200 per liter, almost 100% increase in 1 year, reasons for which are not clear. Though from the health angle experts frown on too much consumption of oils like Palm oil, the failure of the country to increase the production of oil seeds commensurate with demand has given this sector a golden opportunity to reap higher and higher  each passing day! Annual per capita availability of 13.9 kg of oil working out to about 45 gm per person per day is not bad considering that the recommended fat intake is 50 gm per day per person. After all a significant part of fat needs are met through invisible fat present naturally in the diet. The only worrying fact is that every Indian citizen is forced get 50% of his daily requirement oil through imports! A pathetic situation indeed and shame to the Government of India!

V.H.POTTY
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Fresh Fish and super markets-A big contradiction?

The word "fresh" is one of the most misused terminologies by the food industry as most consumers want to eat their food as fresh as possible. Unfortunately there is no unanimity regarding the exact meaning of the word "fresh", different stake holders meaning different things. Consumer expects that fresh fish should the one caught immediately prior to be sold to him while the sellers aim at selling them before deterioration starts setting in. The arbitrator viz the government wants to ensure it is not dangerous to the health of the consumer. The food scientists and quality experts consider any thing fresh if the eating quality is essentially same as that when the fish was caught. In a food like fish which deteriorates in quality pretty fast the seller cannot afford to delay the time lapse between catching and selling too much though to day's technology has the wherewithal to keep it fresh for a few hours after catching. The reported situation in some of the super markets in the UK indicates that fish branded as "fresh" were actually caught 15 days back and consumers are buying a product with practically 80-90% of its life gone! Here is the low down on this tricky issue. 

"Mr Chivers said: Supermarkets selling 'fresh' fish that's really 15 DAYS old  if not in the past few days. 'They think the fish is going to be fresh and tasty. But some of the samples we tested they are not going to enjoy at all.' He used the Torry scale – an industry standard system to measure freshness – in which experts rate the fish's physical characteristics to estimate how long ago it was caught.  Mr Chivers found some fish was in danger of going off quickly. 'These are not off, but give them a day in a domestic fridge and you would begin to taste an off odour,' he told the Sunday Mirror. Current guidelines say fish can be sold as fresh if it has been kept on ice since being caught. Morrisons' fisheries manager, Huw Thomas, said: 'Careful planning ensures that the time between the fish being caught and then sold on our counters is minimal . In our experience, the Torry scale is a reliable tool for judging quality, but not food safety or how long each fish has been out of the water.' A Tesco spokesman said: 'We ensure all our fish is of good quality.' Asda also defended the freshness of its products, saying: 'We are the only retailer to publish how and where we source our wild fish.'A Sainsbury's spokesman said all its fish would remain 'good quality for the duration of its shelf life'"

While consumer is the "King" as far the market is concerned, the manufacturers and marketeers do expect some consideration for their logistical difficulties in procuring and distribution of the product. Industry normally endeavors to minimize the lapse of time between procurement and delivery to the consumer. However consumer is willing to give reasonable time and he expects the industry to be truthful. Where is the necessity of declaring a 15 days old fish as fresh? As long as such declarations are not made consumer may be willing to patronize the brand as long as it tastes good to his palates. Those who sell stale fish cannot be expected to remain in the market for too long and the market will take care of those indulging in  such deceiving practices. Fluid milk vendors often use the words "Dairy Fresh", again to exploit the weakness of consumers to all such things which are fresh (except for liquor). Ultimately under a branded marketing regime, whether fresh or not the quality and safety of the product only can ensure survival of the brands. 

V.H.POTTY
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WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OBESITY? INDIVIDUALS, SOCIETY OR THE GOVERNMENT?

The word "Obesity" is one of the most widely used jargon in modern times because of the concern in many parts of the world regarding the health and economic consequences of this human affliction. Though tons of papers have been published during the last 2 decades, nothing concrete has been achieved to control the obesity epidemic as no consensus exists regarding the root cause that is responsible for this modern tragedy. It is true that obesity is caused by undisciplined eating by a section of the population while hereditary factors also play some part. Governments in various countries are breaking their heads as to how this epidemic can be controlled and a few well meaning intervention programs were launched in different countries with some what indifferent results. It is now being realized as reflected by the report below that consumers them selves are to be blamed for causing this havoc though government agencies can contribute in some measures to help him out with suitable policies.

"A new survey by two food economists confirmed that even obese people don't blame restaurants, grocery stores, farmers, or government policies for obesity, which means that creating and enforcing public policies to reduce obesity or encourage/mandate healthier food is probably not going to be effective. University of Illinois researcher Brenna Ellison and Jayson Lusk at Oklahoma State University note that many of the food policies designed to improve food choices, such as requiring calorie information on restaurant menus and taxing sugar-sweetened beverages, don't produce the intended results. Their question: Why aren't these policies working? Why aren't consumers responding to increased soda prices or calorie information on menus"Obesity is in the news every day so it would be hard to say that people are unaware of the policy initiatives in place to reduce U.S. obesity rates," Ellison said. "Based on our study results, the more likely conclusion is that consumers' beliefs about who is to blame for obesity don't necessarily align with the beliefs of policy makers and public health advocates. In the United States, we're known for being an individualistic-based society, so it's  so it's not exceptionally surprising that we would put this responsibility for obesity on ourselves." An online survey was administered by Clear Voice Research whose registry of panelists is representative of the U.S. population in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, gender, and region. Of the more than 800 people in the United States who took the survey, 774 were usable. The main question of interest asked survey participants was, "Who is primarily to blame for the rise in obesity?" Respondents were asked to classify seven different entities (individuals, parents, farmers, food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, and government policies) as either primarily to blame, somewhat to blame, or not to blame for obesity.  Results of the study showed that 94 percent of people believed individuals are primarily or somewhat to blame for the rise in obesity, with parents coming in second at 91 percent primarily or somewhat to blame. Survey respondents felt farmers and grocery stores were relatively blameless for the rise in obesity."

While obesity is a choice by individuals, one has to define what makes a responsible individual? After all a new born child has neither the will nor the means to choose his foods and depends heavily on the parents to give him good food. Is it possible then that parents who do not fulfill their responsibility to provide balanced and nutritious foods to their children during early years of development, has to bear the brunt of the blame for creating a population with wide spread obesity? There are indications proved by science that children who are lean and normal with respect to BMI during their preschool days invariably escape obesity later when they grow into adults. No wonder that the above study brings out emphatically the role of parents in the obesity saga while normal adults becoming obese due to their sedentary life style and gluttony have to bear the responsibility themselves. The blame game however does provide a solution to this vexed problem though ultimately salvation lies in preparing a future citizenry well educated vis-a-vis the nuances of obesity. 

V.H.POTTY
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REDUCING FOOD WASTAGE-A NEW JAPANESE INITIATIVE

Food waste is a topic of intense interest because many critics feel that if such wasted foods are saved it could feed millions of hungry people across the world. Organizations with noble intentions are indeed making voluntary efforts to redeem such foods where ever possible by organizing safe collection, storage and delivery system providing socour  to many needy people but the scale of operation is not very high because of many logistical problems encountered by them. "Expiry Date" or "Best Before Date" printed on the label of every packed food item is by far the most causative factor for food waste as consumers consider it as unfit for consumption once the product is past the declared date. Similarly consumer has always a tendency to avoid buying food products nearing the best before date and invariably such edible foods are destined for the landfills! In to day's well organized marketing system manufacturer, wholesale distributor and the retailer have a well established understanding regarding the time each one takes for delivering the finished product to the next player in the chain. Here is an example of a market in one of the rich countries in Asia, Japan where the present system is sought to be changed for reducing food waste.

"Japan's food industry currently follows a self-imposed "one-third rule" concerning products. For example, under the rule, producers and wholesalers must throw out products made on Jan. 1 that have a best-before date of March 31 if they cannot deliver those goods to retailers by Jan. 31--the first one-third of the period before the expiration date. Even if the wholesalers deliver the products in time, retailers discard the food items if they remain unsold until Feb. 28, which ends the second third of the expiry date. During the experiment, the companies will adopt a "one-half rule." That means the distribution of products made on Jan. 1 would be allowed until mid February, and retailers can sell the food even during March. The success of the experiment depends on whether Japanese consumers, who are known to be picky, are willing to buy the older products. The companies involved in the trial run include snack and beverage manufactures, such as Meiji Co. and Coca-Cola (Japan) Co., as well as Mitsubishi Shokuhin Co., Seven-Eleven Japan Co. and Aeon Retail Co".

It is not realized that best before date is only an indicative date beyond which the product may not have 100% eating quality in comparison to its freshly manufactured counterpart. But it does not mean that such products are unsafe measured by any yardstick. Food industry and the food authorities in many countries are forced to declare such expiry dates to ensure citizens get the best quality foods with minimum safety risks. Unfortunately no manufacturer will take legal responsibility if some thing happens to the consumer after consuming date expired food products. Probably there may be a need to revisit the provision of printing expiry date if a real attempt is to be made to reduce food waste through this route. Is it possible that the industry prints only dates beyond which the food may be unsafe? If this is practical the extent of food discarded can be significantly reduced. It may be worth looking at this option with all its attendant consequences. 

V.H.POTTY
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OLEORESINS-INDIA'S NEW STRENGTH

The late Dr H A B Parpia, who recently passed away must have been excited if alive to day by the news that India is dominating the world oleoresin market, thanks to his endeavors during late sixties to develop domestic technology for recovering the active ingredients of spices, condiments and aromatic materials. If Indian manufacturers, most of whom use the  CFTRI technology for manufacture of oleoresins from a variety of odiferous substances, are able to capture more than 60% of the world market for these concentrated flavor products, it is due to also their innovative efforts and adaption of the original CFTRI technology to keep up with global needs and standards. Three cheers to them. Here is a report from the industry itself which highlights their capabilities in this area. 

You may not realise it when you dig into a piece of chicken in, say, Kentucky and wash it down with a cola. Chances are that spice oil extracts or oleoresin of chilli from Andhra and nutmeg grown in Kerala may have given hot and tangy flavours to the meat and cola. Or, take the perfume that you spray on your body. It could be carrying the aroma of lemon grass oleoresin from Karnataka or cardamom extracts from Kerala. India dominates the global market for spice oleoresin, which is in big demand from processed food and fragrance industries that now mostly prefer natural colouring and flavouring agents to artificial ones as consumers become increasingly health conscious.

One must recall what type of trials and tribulations this industry went through in early days to commercialize the indigenous technology tailoring to the needs of foreign buyers. The original technology was developed using ethylene di chloride as the solvent which was banned because of potential health hazards. Now the technology makes use of alcohol and/or acetone as the preferred solvent while the high pressure super critical fluid carbon dioxide extraction gives a very high quality product from practically any odiferous substance with no solvent residue left behind to be bothered about. If the industry performs well keeping quality and safety as its corner stone, it is unlikely that any competitor will ever emerge to rival India's position as the number one player in the global arena. 

V.H.POTTY
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ENSLAVING THE CONSUMER-THE NEW GAME BY FOOD INDUSTRY!

Food industry has a responsibility to protect the health of its consumers by manufacturing healthy products because of the confidence and trust they receive from them unreservedly. Unfortunately this trust is being systematically undermined by practices considered unethical and hostile to consumer interests, at least by a major segment of the industry during the last three decades.  Safety authorities are increasingly being forced to bring in mandatory steps to discipline this industry which seems to be more focused on making easy money at the expense of the consumer. The enormous "money clout" and political patronage from the elected representatives make them immune to any penal action and corrective efforts by the government. The result is massive health crisis that is happening in countries like America where obesity and over weight people make up more than 50% of the population! Scientific data regarding adverse consequences of food additives are systematically suppressed and food standards are diluted through nexus with safety authorities. Now comes the news that American food industry controlled by a few monopolistic giant players have infiltrated into professional organizations for influencing technical decisions by scientists and generate industry friendly data. Here is a take on this unfortunate trend which needs to curbed at any cost 

"Instead of joining the fight against the obesity and diabetes epidemics, the food industry—Big Food—persistently pushes favorable legislation in Congress through aggressive and, more often than not, successful lobbying, as the recent "Monsanto Protection Act" proved. As if this were not enough, Big Food companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Hershey's seem to have also basically taken over the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the largest organization of dietitians and nutritionists in the country. And this is without even mentioning that research has led these companies to learn how to manipulate people's tastes and habits. Public health attorney Michele Simon talks about this in "And now a word from our sponsors: Are America's nutrition professionals in the pocket of Big Food?"—a report that questions the ethics of the Academy's acceptance of such sponsorship. "The food industry's deep infiltration of the nation's top nutrition organization raises serious questions, not only about that profession's credibility, but also about its policy positions," says Simon in the report's summary. Simon's reports that in the past 10 years there has been more than a three-fold increase in sponsorships from the Big Food industry. One of the most loyal AND's sponsor is the National Cattleman's Beef Association, followed by ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg's and the National Dairy Council. Coca-Cola, Kraft and PesiCo come in next. If it were just because the Academy needs the funds to do its educational outreach, all this might be understandable. But has AND at least established some guidelines about the messages broadcast by the companies to their own people? It doesn't seem so. Paradoxically, the Academy represents itself as an advocate for Eating Right (their public campaign's brand), calling people to make informed choices and to develop sound eating and physical activity habits". 

What will happen to the consumers in the US if this trend continues unabated with many scientists in the pockets of the industry? Are their lives going to be more and more uncertain with practically no choice regarding what they want to eat? Who is to be believed and who are their real friends and protectors? The scientific community as a whole must be ashamed of themselves for this unholy alliance with this dubious industry! Where will the common man go in search of truth? Is a time coming for the consumer to be self reliant in terms of food safety by shunning the processed foods and in stead go back to their kitchens to make their own foods, preferably with organic food raw materials? May be yes.  

V.H.POTTY
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SUGAR LADEN "HEALTHY" FOODS!-INDUSTRY'S NEW STRATEGY

Any responsible country will spare no efforts to make the lives of its citizens safe from many dangers lurking around them including unsafe foods. In balancing the citizen's right and his well being, reasonable restrictions will have to be put in place on the former so that the public place becomes more secure for the society in general. In the case of food also every country has a legal frame work within which only food handlers, traders and processors will have to work. Lately there appears to be a bias in favor of the industry players in allowing many foods to be made and marketed by them which are patently unhealthy if the scientific yardsticks are strictly applied. Food products containing unusually high levels of sugar and fat are becoming the mainstay of the industry which is exploiting the weakness of consumers to these palate tingling offerings and over a period of time get hooked on to these life threatening products. The result is the wide spread prevalence of food related human disorders like CVD, Diabetes, Hypertension, Kidney ailments etc and there is almost a unanimous view that to day's Obesity epidemic associated with many wealthy countries is mainly due to over consumption of such foods while physical activity of individuals is declining rapidly. Governments are usually reluctant to displease the industry by mandatory restrictions and depend more on persuasion for voluntary action by the manufacturers for improving the health credentials of the products they make and sell. According to the experience in several countries such voluntary actions agreed to by the industry is often a sham and only lip service is made to mislead the governments as well as the consumers. Here is a critique on this on going "ping pong" game between the government and the industry leaving the consumer a silent spectator!

"The nation's largest food and beverage companies are under renewed attack for what critics see as misleading ads for obesity-promoting foods, especially ads aimed at kids. "The trickery that we're trying to stop includes General Mills' false claims that some of its corn-syrup- drenched products are 'natural,' and Coca-Cola Company's deceptive health claims about its Vitaminwater (which would be better called Sugarwater)," the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Wednesday in a release launching its "Stop the Lying Labels" campaign. Industry representatives counter that they have worked to make their products healthier - just as critics have demanded. "Since 2002, we have introduced more than 20,000 new product choices with fewer calories, reduced fat, sodium and sugar, and more whole grains," the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in an e-mail. "We have voluntarily adopted strict advertising criteria" through the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative."

One of the strategies of war is to give an inch if peace can be brought which may not make any significant loss to the one who makes such a gesture and food industry also seems to be adopting this practice if their promises and performance are closely monitored. There are thousands of products made by the industry which contain very high amounts of sugar, fat and salt and to buy peace with the consumer activists and reluctant government safety agencies either the concentration of these ingredients is marginally reduced or a healthy ingredient is included in the recipe! High pressure promotional campaigns are undertaken to highlight the "sacrifice" made by the industry by changing the "established formula" of the products! It is like adding a drop of "Elixir" to a chalice of poison and claim that the product is better than the original poison!  Probably food industry will learn only when consumers start putting pressure on the industry by banishing unhealthy products from their buying basket and force the government to discipline the industry leaving no option but to make only healthy products. In this endeavor grading of foods based on some scientifically valid scale and printing easily recognizable icons on the label can go a long way to use the consumer force to weed way unhealthy products eventually.

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NON-BROWNING APPLE-A NEW GMO FRUIT BEING APPROVED.

Apple is a fruit much cherished among well to do people who can afford to buy it at the present market price of Rs 150 per kg and above. Though Apple is produced in India in states like Himachal and Kashmir, considerable quantity is imported into the country from countries like the US, japan, New Zealand etc and after paying the import duty the price reaches levels which are unaffordable  to the vast majority of the Indian population. But what is not understandable is why Indian apple also costs as much as that of imported ones and the only explanation is that apple industry in the country sees this as an opportunity to make money because there are adequate buyers in the country who buy them at any cost!. What ever it is, the fact remains that a nutritious food material has become cost prohibitive due to factors which have nothing to do with actual cost of production in the orchards. Recent reports that apple has been genetically modified to make it more beautiful when cut without developing the brown color are interesting as this is a case of using a suspect technology for purpose other than improving nutrition or production economics. Here is a take on this new development which of course may not have any relevance in a country like India because of minuscule consumption.  

"First, let's look at the physical properties of apples. No matter how you slice it, every apple turns brown eventually. "When their flesh is cut, the oxygen in the air interacts with chemicals in the flesh of the apple," says Susan Brown, a plant scientist at Cornell University. An enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO, makes melanin, an iron-containing compound that gives apple cells a brown tinge. The same type of "oxidative" browning happens in the browning of tea, coffee or mushrooms, explains Brown. Within five minutes of slicing, browning can alter the taste and might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it doesn't mean the apple is old or rotten. To prevent oxidative browning, the GM apples developed by Okanagan stop PPO production with a man-made gene containing pieces of four natural PPO genes. An insertion with gene fragments is an automatic red flag for the apple cell — usually the first step of viral attack — so it chops up every sequence of DNA that looks like the suspicious fragment, and the apple flesh stays light. "The beauty of this [process] is it's a natural plant defense mechanism," says Carter. Even when sliced, these apples stay clear of browning for about two weeks — that's roughly the same extended life span as apple slices from McDonald's and Burger King, which use lemon juice and calcium ascorbate to prevent browning.  But if the apple doesn't go brown, then how do you tell if it's rotten? An apple with just oxidative browning isn't automatically rotten. Rotting comes from a fungal or bacterial infection, which causes the apple to go either mushy or dry. Infecting spores, not melanin, also give the flesh a dark brown hue. So, taking PPO out of the equation won't make a rotten apple appear pristine. "'Bad' apples will still be evident," says Brown. Rotting GM apples look rotten and turn brown from a bacterial or fungal infection the same as a conventional apple. But Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, notes that some studies in tomatoes have shown that silencing PPO has an impact on a plant's susceptibility to diseases and invasive insects because the enzyme may play a role in plant defense reactions."

Food industry has already known that during apple processing browning is a problem and it also has the technology to prevent or retard browning by arresting the enzymatic reaction involving polyphenol oxidase which is exposed to the air when cell integrity is affected during peeling, slicing, crushing etc. If so what is the necessity for tinkering with the genes to knock out this enzyme through biotechnology? How many consumers want the apple to be without developing brown color during the time of eating? Probably not many. Though the safety authorities in the US may accord approval for this new version of apple, it is doubtful whether these apples will be readily accepted in other countries. The new variety developed through the GMO route may have a doubtful commercial success within the US itself if consumer comes to know that it is genetically tinkered with! It is another matter that GM products are not required to be labeled in a country like the US and therefore consumers may patronize the product unknowingly.     

V.H.POTTY
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