ANOTHER MILK "PROBLEM"-CHINA'S LATEST SAFETY TRAVAILS

It is sad to see a country like China struggling to cope up with food frauds in spite of the brutal state power available with the government to punish the culprits with even capital punishment. How far the corruption at the government level influences the attitude of adulterators is not clear. The incident of Melamine tainting of infant food that killed and maimed many children, which is not easy to erase from memory, has dented the image of this country considerably and any effort to seriously address the systemic failure is not viewed with confidence by the citizens as well as international buyers of Chinese foods. Now comes the news that Milk being produced by one of the leading dairies in that country is contaminated with the deadly Aflatoxin at levels not considered acceptable in many countries, further straining the credibility of food safety administration of there. Here is a gist of the news report which gives further insight into the episode.  

"China has discovered excessive levels of a cancer-causing toxin in milk produced by one of the nation's leading dairy companies, the firm said, in the latest in a series of food safety alarms. The government's quality watchdog found high levels of an aflatoxin, which is caused by mould, in milk produced by the Mengniu Dairy Group, the company said in a statement issued Sunday. Mengniu said the milk, produced at one of its plants in the southwestern province of Sichuan, was tested before being sold so the contaminated milk never reached the market. China is trying to crack down on product safety violations to reassure citizens and restore faith in the government after a series of high-profile scandals. Milk was at the centre of China's biggest food safety scandal in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content. At least six babies died and another 300,000 became ill after drinking milk tainted with melamine. Product safety problems have been found in goods ranging from pharmaceuticals to cooking oil. In September, the government arrested 32 people over the sale of cooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters. Aflatoxins can be found in milk after cows consume feed contaminated by mould and can increase the risk of cancer, including liver cancer, according to the World Health Organisation. Mengniu said the products had been destroyed, and apologised to consumers".

The explanation that the affected milk supply came from cattle, fed with animal feeds containing high levels of Aflatoxin which is generated due to growth of the mold Aspergillus under unsatisfactory conditions of storage or use of Aflatoxin tainted ingredients like groundnut cake, cannot be an excuse to condone such dangerous episodes. If the production of cattle feed or processing of milk is managed under HACCP regime, such an incidence could not have happened. One can only hope that adequate lessons will be learned from this unfortunate incidence of milk poisoning.  

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

ANOTHER "MEGA" DREAM FOR FOOD PROCESSING- A GRANDIOSE "PLAN"

Ever since the Ministry of Food Processing Industry(MoFPI)was established as a Special Purpose Vehicle of Government of India two decades ago, like any other government agency, this set up has been producing reams of papers, often glossy, promising many things and raising visions of a vibrant food industry in the country. It is well known that on a per unit investment food processing sector create more employment provided it is dominated by small and medium scale enterprises. If large scale mechanization is deployed in the processing, the employment content comes down drastically. A look at the past developments, the Indian food industry is increasingly being controlled by Mega companies and MNCs with huge investment and capital intensive foreign originated technologies sidelining the small and tiny sector players. Frequent "declarations" that MoFPI would increase the value addition to agricultural produce, raise the GDP contribution and substantially increase exports is turning out to be mere sloganeering and whatever the country has been able to achieve so far is in spite of the government by the enterprising private players. The latest "Plan" to set up 10 Mega food parks can materialize only if adequate industry friendly environment is provided and just offering subsidies will end up in huge tracts of land being appropriated by big fishes under the garb of establishing food processing units. Here is the grand stand posturing of MoFPI on this grandiose plans.

"The food parks will be built in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Assam, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar and Tripura. Ministry has introduced Mega Food Parks Scheme (MFPS) to accelerate the growth of food processing industry in the country through facilitating establishment of strong food processing infrastructure backed by an efficient supply chain. Ministry informed that the scheme provides for a capital grant of 50 percent of the project cost in difficult and Institute for Transportation and Development Policy(ITDP) notified areas(with a ceiling of Rs 50 crores). The government is likely to be spent a sum of Rs.488 crore by March 2012 on the scheme for technology upgradation and modernization of food processing industries. A Mega Food Park takes about 30-36 months to be completed. The working group on food processing for the XII Plan has recommended a new centrally sponsored scheme in the form of National Mission on Food Processing (NMFP) proposed with seven components".

It is true that China has achieved lot using the strategy of Mega Food Parks which helped that country as a major exporter of processed foods of all hues at relatively low cost. But this has happened because of extraordinary facilities and support provided by the government there in stead of just "passing on" the money as it is happening in India. A Mega Food Park must be "mega" in size by bringing in many diverse processors from the small and medium scale sector in stead of a few mega companies with very little employment content. In stead of Mega Parks what the country needs is hundreds of functional industrial estates with superb infrastructure and a few common facilities including marketing help. Big companies have sufficient resources to set up their own facilities and do not need any prop from the government. One can only hope better sense will prevail eventually!

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

ORGANIC FOODS-NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH

Organic foods market is on a steady climb and can be expected to become a significant player in a few years to come. The major reason for people patronizing this version of food is because of apprehensions about the risks posed by the main stream food industry which is being hauled up for a series of serious safety violations requiring massive recalls of many suspected consignments from the market. The organic food certification is a complex procedure involving frequent checking and monitoring and like any human endeavor certification agencies can be vulnerable to mismanagement and some times manipulation causing some serious concern. It is a tribute to China that it is trying to make the organic certification process as transparent as possible to infuse more confidence among consumers, especially the international buyers. If the policy orchestrated recently is implemented organic foods from China may become darling of the prospective buyers. Here is a take on this development in that country.

"A senior staff member from one of China's 23 official certification bodies, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disclosed that
a new national standard will be unveiled in March to ease the chaos. The standard will include four important changes from 

the original, in 2005. This staff member has been working in organic food certification for about eight years. He said the first two changes

will concern the transition period, akin to probation, when a farm applies for the certification of land. It lasts for 24 or 36 months, 

depending on the crops grown there, and farms must begin following organic practices three or four months before the transition period.

Under the current standard, as soon as farms enter the transition, they can obtain yellow certification, indicating their products are moving

toward organic.Green certification is granted only if the farm passes probation. "The problem with this stage is that, under the current

standard, a farm can get a transition period certificate, even if it only stopped applying chemicals on the crops three or four months

earlier,"the senior staff member said. Under revised procedures, no certificates will be issued in the first 12 months of transition.

"That is to say, the farm will have to stop using chemicals for at least 15 months before it can receive a yellow certificate," he said.

Also, farmers will not be allowed to label their products "organic transition food", which has been used to denote food that was better

than ordinary but not as good as organic.The staff member also said the new regulations will set the acceptable level of pesticide residue

at zero.The current standard allows "one-20th of that found in ordinary food".

China can do well with some image make over after a series of food adulteration episodes that has shaken the confidence on its reliability and safety and this has caused some erosion of its food export business. China has a better chance of enforcing harsh control regimes to safeguard the image of its industry and there is no reason this new initiative will not succeed though corruption and corruptible enforcement officials can still derail the program. Probably other countries may have a lesson to learn from China in initiating such new novel features in the regulatory regime.

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

MEXICAN FOODS FOUND TAINTED-NEW FOOD POISONING OUT BREAK

No matter how stringent the food safety regulations are, as long as human beings handle food there is bound to be health risks associated with such mass manufactured food products. It is a wonder that instances of food poisoning are not as alarming as it could be, considering the massive volumes handled by the food industry, especially in a high consumption country like the US. The new regulations which are supposed to be more stringent, based on past experience being enforced in that country are giving, probably, false hopes to the consumers that they can relax with no possibility of any danger from the foods they access from the market. Probably such a feeling is misplaced as there is nothing in this world which is absolutely safe, the whole life being a balance of risks and benefits associated with day to day activities. Recent food poisoning episode in the US that affected about 69 people in 10 states has been attributed to foods consumed in Mexican restaurants but it is not yet certain that those affected consumed the food from one or more restaurants belonging to established Mexican food chains. Investigation should pin point the source from where Salmonella was able to gain access to the stomach of the affected consumers so that such incidences are not repeated else where in future. 

"Food Safety News has found that six fast food "Mexican-style" restaurant chains -- Taco Bell, Chipotle, Qdoba, Del Taco, Taco John's and Taco Del Mar -- have locations in at least 7 of the 10 states reporting victims tied to the outbreak. Three chains - Chipotle, Qdoba and Taco Bell - have locations in all 10 states. Because the CDC lists outbreak victims by the state in which their illnesses were reported, it is possible that some of the victims ate contaminated food in one state and fell ill in another state -- meaning "Restaurant Chain A" does not necessarily have a franchise in each state that reported an outbreak-related case of salmonellosis. Food Safety News attempted to contact representatives from each of the six restaurant chains. Thus far, only representatives from Qdoba and Chipotle have stated their chains were not involved in the outbreak. "There is no connection to Chipotle and we have not been contacted by CDC or any other health officials regarding this incident," said a representative for Chipotle in an emailed statement to Food Safety News Monday.  "No, we have not been linked by the CDC to any Salmonella outbreaks at any of our locations," Lauren Preston of Qdoba told Food Safety News Monday. Taco Bell, Del Taco, Taco John's and Taco Del Mar did not return any of Food Safety News's requests for comment, despite repeated attempts. Last week, Food Safety News called the health departments in each of 10 states involved in the outbreak, and the CDC and FDA, and none of these public agencies would provide the name of the restaurant. The list of states where Salmonella enteriditis illnesses were reported is as follows: Texas (43), Oklahoma (16), Kansas (2) Iowa (2), Michigan (1), Missouri (1), Nebraska (1), New Mexico (1), Ohio (1) and Tennessee (1)". 

Has the above episode a lesson to offer to restaurants catering ethnic foods? It is widely known that those catering ethnic foods from China, India, Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc are less rigorous in their adherence to standard hygienic and sanitary practices raising the chances of contamination in the preparations made by them. While Indian customers with "strong" stomach might not react to foods marginally tainted, local population trying such foods occasionally may not have the required "immunity" to resist even mild contamination resulting in illness. The message from the above episode is that ethnic food caterers must see the writing on the wall and make their establishment truly safe for every customer who walks in for enjoying their food with no danger of falling sick.

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

SALT-RENEWED FOCUS ON ITS "VILLAINY"!

Salt in moderate quantities enhance the appeal of those foods which are bland to taste. Any savory preparation without salt can be a disaster for any food processor as there will be few takers for it. On the other hand high salt content can be organoleptically undesirable besides setting in the satiety factor quickly. For centuries salt was valued very high in the human society and there was a time salt was even used as a currency for trade. How is that such a friendly and useful commodity has fallen off the high pedestal in a matter of 4-5 decades and to day it is being castigated as the biggest enemy of human being! While no one disputes the essentiality of salt for normal good health, what is being debated is how much can be consumed by an individual without being affected by a plethora of diseases attributed to high salt consumption. If health and nutrition pundits are to be believed a human just requires just about 220 mg of sodium a day, equivalent to half a gram of salt whereas actual consumption could be almost 5-20 times in different parts of the world. The new finding that it is not the level of salt in the diet that determines the vulnerability of humans to diseases but the ratio of sodium to potassium that influences the health, appears to answer the troubling question as to why all people consuming high salt are not affected by their diet. Probably salt in isolation may not be a true indicator for developing diseases and the whole life style also may have a role to play. Here is a take on this vital health issue confronting to day's world.

"Well, think again. A major study, based on data from more than 12,000 American adults, took into account all those risk factors for death from heart disease. The researchers found that while a diet high in sodium — salt is the main source — increases your risk, even more important is the ratio of sodium (harmful) to potassium (protective) in one's diet. When people whose meals contained little sodium relative to potassium were compared with those whose diets had a high sodium-to-potassium ratio, the latter were nearly 50 percent more likely to die from any cause and more than twice as likely to die from ischemic heart disease during a follow-up period averaging 14.8 years. Although there has been on-and-off controversy about the value of limiting dietary salt, there is no question that a high level of sodium in the diet raises blood pressure and the risk of chronic hypertension by stiffening arteries and blocking nitric oxide, which relaxes arteries. Hypertension, in turn, contributes to heart disease and stroke, leading causes of death. Potassium, on the other hand, activates nitric oxide and thus reduces pressure in the arteries, lowering the risk of hypertension. "We controlled for all the major cardiovascular risk factors and still found an association between the sodium-potassium ratio and deaths from heart disease," said Dr. Elena V. Kuklina, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an author of the study, published earlier this year in Archives of Internal Medicine. "With age, the risk of high blood pressure increases. The lifetime risk in this country is 90 percent. If you live long enough, you're at risk." According to an Institute of Medicine report on sodium released last year, "No one is immune to the adverse health effects of excessive sodium intake."

If adequate knowledge is not available to day as to the type of diet which can be safe for the humans, in spite of high salt content present, it is time more focused attention is given to unravel the mysteries of this vital food ingredient. If salt is really bad in the daily diet why is that people in countries like India who are prolific consumers of salt have less incidences of blood pressure and other salt related diseases? Surveys like the above reported cannot give absolute answer to such pointed queries and the answer lies some where else. More research under controlled conditions using human subjects is called for in elucidating the role of salt. In absence of clear picture regarding optimum intake of salt for sound health, it may be wiser to listen to cautionary signals calling for cutting down salt as much as possible. One can only hope that lowering of salt in the diet as being recommended will not precipitate any other unanticipated problems in future.

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

TOO MUCH GOOD FOOD CAN ALSO CAUSE PROBLEM!

There is an old saying that even "Elixir" can become a poison when consumed in unlimited quantity. Same is true with food also. The root cause of many modern day life style diseases has been attributed to processed foods with high degree of refining where bulk of the health promoting constituents are removed. A diet not balanced in terms of essential nutrients can also be a deterrent to sound health as being seen with many wealthy consumers who eat rich foods but some what unbalanced vis-a-vis one or the other nutrient vital for normal body metabolism. In India Mango is a much liked fruit but it is also rich in sugar and one of the regular observations made by physicians is that many diabetic people land into problem during Mango season because of high sugar levels in the blood caused by too much consumption of Mango. Those counting their calories must be aware of the calories contributed by fruits though these protective foods are recommended by nutrition experts. Same is true with other recommended foods like coarse grains, whole grains etc all of which do contribute to calories and their excess consumption does not help the cause of weight control.  Here is an interesting commentary by a discerning observer about the implications of over consumption.

People often make the mistake of thinking that something is good for you just because it's all-natural or organic. Today, I want to focus on a different nutritional blind-spot: quality vs. quantity. Even when a food is good for you, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can eat it in unlimited quantities. Whole grains and fresh fruits are two examples of healthy foods that can easily be over-consumed. 

It is true the concepts of Cosmic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) are excellent to guide consumers regarding the quality of carbohydrate in a diet but ultimately one has to control the quantity consumed to prevent excess calorie build up which can add to the waist line. When it comes to planning a diet for a normally healthy individual and others handicapped by disorders like diabetes, obesity etc different yardsticks need to be used but the basic principle that over delivery of calorie rich foods to any one can be deleterious to both the groups. Moderation and elf-discipline in eating are the corner stones for a normal healthy life.

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

THE REAL "FAST" FOOD-GLOBALIZATION OF CATERING

With major cuisines from China, Mexico, India and other countries becoming universally sought after, the national boundaries are getting blurred more and more and the ease of travel across the globe has further accentuated this trend. Restaurants specialized in the traditional cuisines of many countries are springing up every where in the world and there is no dearth of customers for these joints. The explosive development of Food Truck industry, especially in the US, has taken eating experience to a different level with customers patronizing these mobile food caterers in great numbers. It is in this context one has to appreciate the novel approach to catering by an entrepreneur in London with his offer of the foods prepared in his restaurant any where in the world using a renovated Jet fighter acquired from Iraq. According to the claims made by him the foods are much sought after by many celebrities from many countries and he seems to have developed the necessary skill to deliver these foods in prime condition. Here is a take on this new phenomenon.  

"The owner of an Indian restaurant in Britain has bought a fighter jet to deliver his food to celebrity clients across the world. Rob Abdul, 40, who runs the Cafe Taj restaurant in Gravesend, Kent, bought the now abandoned Iraqi warplane with a pilot friend, and has spent 35,000 pounds ($55,000) restoring it. "One thing you cannot do as a businessman is disappoint your customers. I regularly get requests from around the world," Abdul was quoted as saying by the Daily Express. Abdul has previously sent food from his restaurant to the England cricket team on tour to Australia".

One is curious to know the over head cost incurred in supplying food out side England by air and whether the eventual price tag would not be too high. Probably for celebrities who earn thousands of dollars every minute through their talent, any price tag might not be too high. 

Modern food technologies like modified atmosphere packing, freezing, aseptic filling, high pressure processing etc, capable of preserving the quality of food for significantly longer periods, there may not be any technological challenge for the venture. Logistical problems like phyto-sanitary clearance and border controls between countries may still pose some uncertainties, especially under the present security concerns for international travel and freighting. All said, the new initiative deserves to be applauded and it is worth watching the experience of this entrepreneur to guide future developments in this area. 

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