Aug 8, 2017
Use fortified wheat, edible oil in cooking mid-day meals: Centre tells States
The Mid-day meal guidelines of 2006 and food safety guidelines issued by the Ministry in 2015 for school level kitchen provide that only double fortified salts should be used for cooking mid-day meal.
The centre has asked states to ensure that fortified wheat and edible oil with double fortified salt only is used in cooking mid-day meals for children in schools covered under the scheme.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has also suggested the state governments to encourage the use of green leafy vegetables like spinach, drumsticks, and “other locally available and culturally acceptable” iron-rich vegetables in the mid-day meal menu of the schools.
In a recent advisory to the States, the Ministry also called for a status report on the use of fortified food items in mid-day meal.
“A child suffering from micronutrient deficiencies finds it difficult to concentrate and work on a sustainable basis. You are therefore advised to take suitable steps to ensure mandatory fortification of the food articles used in the mid-day meal scheme with immediate effect,” school education department secretary of the HRD Ministry Anil Swarup said in a recent letter to chief secretaries of all States.
This comes about a year after the Centre decided that double fortified salt with iron and iodine, wheat flour fortified with iron, folic acid and vitamin B-12 and edible oil fortified with vitamin A and D should be considered for mandatory fortification through mid-day meal scheme along with Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and public distribution system (PDS).
The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have already taken a joint initiative to towards ensuring fortification of food items to be supplied to beneficiaries of various schemes.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India operationalised the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulation in 2016. The Mid-day meal guidelines of 2006 and food safety guidelines issued by the Ministry in 2015 for school level kitchen provide that only double fortified salts should be used for cooking mid-day meal.
“I shall appreciate if you could kindly provide information on the current position as well as the action taken to promote the mandatory use of the double fortified salt, fortified wheat flour and fortified edible oil in mid-day meal,” the HRD Ministry Secretary stated in his letter to the chief secretaries.
Hazardous food: Govt acts against erring food operators
New Delhi, Aug 7 (UNI) As many as 4,694 cases were registered, 288 convictions made and 1,049 cases invited penalties in 2016-17 for failing to meet the prescribed standards in products sold and because the articles so sold turned out to be potentially hazardous for human health, as per information made available by the states / union territory governments, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Faggan Singh Kulaste, has said.
Informing the Lok Sabha recently, Mr Kulaste informed that Rs 4,49,43,648 were raised as penalties out of these offences across the country excluding states of Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
''As many as Rs 21,65,98,989 were collected in 2015-16 towards fine as 9,979 cases against erring food business operators were launched, 540 convictions made and 3,669 cases of penalties were registered throughout the country with information not received from Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Telangana,'' Mr Kulaste said.
He said these were the stringent actions taken by the Governments of the states and the UTs to check
spurious food sold in the markets.
The Minister further informed that only food products for which standards are specified in various regulations under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 are permitted to be manufactured or sold or imported in India.
''It is the responsibility of the states/ union territories to ensure that products which do not meet the prescribed standards and are potentially hazardous for human health are not allowed to be manufactured or distributed or sold or imported,'' he noted.
''Therefore, the Government or Food safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on its own does not
maintain a record of presence of toxic and hazardous substances in the food products and health hazards caused due to them,'' he remarked.
''The current machinery is being quite effective in addressing the problem and therefore the action on part of the Government on errant food business operators in the country," he added.
Millions of chickens face cull in Europe health scandal
Denis Ducarme said in a statement he had told the food safety agency (AFSCA) to produce a "report on the circumstances of the agency's actions since the first information it received about the fipronil problem"
Aug 7 Millions of chickens could be culled in the netherlands over fears of insecticide-tainted eggs, an industry body said as belgium vowed full transparency today about why it kept the scandal secret.
Supermarkets in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and switzerland have pulled millions of eggs from the shelves after fipronil, a substance potentially dangerous to humans, was found in them.
Dutch farming organisation LTO said that several million hens may need to be culled at 150 companies in the country, with 300,000 having already been killed.
An LTO spokesman said late Sunday that they "had to be eliminated because of contamination".
Belgium's agriculture minister meanwhile said he had ordered the country's food safety agency to report by Tuesday on why it failed to notify neighbouring countries until July 20 despite knowing about fipronil contamination since June.
Denis Ducarme said in a statement he had told the food safety agency (AFSCA) to produce a "report on the circumstances of the agency's actions since the first information it received about the fipronil problem"
Facing pressure from Germany and the Netherlands, Ducarme promised "complete transparency".
He said he would speak by telephone with his counterparts in the coming days.
Ducarme added that products from 57 Belgian egg producers -- around a quarter of the country's -- had been blocked as a preventative measure.
Belgian officials admitted on Saturday they had kept the problem under wraps and failed to trigger the EU's international food safety alert system but said it was because of a fraud probe.
European Commission spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen said she could not comment on the Belgian delay "because it's an ongoing criminal investigation."
Germany has demanded an explanation from Belgium about why the issue was kept covered up.
Fipronil is commonly used in veterinary products to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks. But it is banned from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption, such as chickens.
In large quantities, the insecticide is considered to be "moderately hazardous" according to the World Health Organization, and can have dangerous effects on people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.
It is believed the toxic substance was introduced to poultry farms by a Dutch business named Chickfriend brought in to treat red lice, a nasty parasite in chickens.
Dutch and Belgian media reports that the substance containing the insecticide was supplied to Chickfriend by a Belgian firm have not been confirmed.
France, UK among 4 countries urged to check eggs
The European Union has notified food safety authorities in Britain, France, Sweden and Switzerland as a precautionary measure that some eggs contaminated with an insecticide might have entered their territory.
The European Commission said today that Germany and the Netherlands notified the EU's food safety alert system over the weekend.
Commission spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen said the aim was "to share the information so that everybody knows that it's now also up to the Swedish, Swiss, French and to the UK national authorities to check."
She said the move is purely precautionary and does not mean that eggs contaminated with the insecticide Fipronil have actually entered those countries.
Belgian and Dutch authorities are investigating how the insecticide came illegally into contact with poultry.
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