Food Fudge: It’s Time To Face The Storm

The ostrich has a habit of putting its head into the ground to protect itself during a storm. Little does it realise that the whole body is still vulnerable. This is in relation to our food regulators – FSSAI.

Go to any food store in the city and you’ll find the labelling confusing. Stark examples are the breads – the so-called the atta bread is described as “fresh chakki bread”. Well do we have the stone-grinding stuff and how many of us grind our wheat to get the flour?

If you have noticed, our food regulators have come under the pressure of junk food mafias and slyly changed salt with sodium, total fat with saturated fat and total sugar with added sugar. These changes will now be displayed on FoP labels along with the other two nutrients – carbohydrates and protein.

The presence of sodium on the food pack, not salt — which triggers hypertension. People have little understanding of sodium, its relation to salt, and how to calculate its value to find the salt content. It is in the industry’s interest that FoP declares saturated fat instead of total fat. Packaged foods are high in fat, but may or may not have high saturated fat. It does not address the problem in totality and may mislead the consumer to believe that fat other than saturated fat is not harmful.

Saturated fat is strongly linked to heart diseases, which typically appear after adulthood. But a diet high in total fat can bring trouble at a much younger age. It can cause obesity among children. Therefore, total fat should be depicted in front of food packs along with saturated fat.

Childhood obesity has become a growing concern now. The 2,000 Kcal threshold accepted by FSSAI is too high for children, and can lead to a much higher intake of fat and sugar.

Part disclosure of fat on FoP, therefore, holds little merit. Before throwing total fat out of the FoP label, FSSAI could have explored the possibility of placing it alongside saturated fat.

In fact, total fat could have replaced trans fat, which is already on its way out of packed and fast food. FSSAI declared it would eliminate industrially produced trans fat by 2022. But have we achieved it?

Another set of dilutions is in the sugar info — ‘total sugar’ changes to ‘added sugar’. This means the FoP label skips information on the naturally occurring sugar in the food. Only sugar added while processing food will be displayed on the FoP label.

This is not all. While it’s decided to change total sugar to added sugar, it does not revise the RDA for sugar. Total sugar earlier was limited to 50 g and now, added sugar — which is a component of the total sugar that we take — is also kept at 50 g. This is double the limit for added sugar. In other words, mislead and misinform is the name of this food game, all for profit.

Since packed foods are high in salt and fat, they should have at least two high alert pointers. In the case of fast foods, barring fries which should be red for fat and a pizza that should be red for salt, all should have alert for salt and fat. It is critical that the alerts are placed on the menu and display boards in restaurants.

Take the case of salt. FSSAI has set 0.25 g sodium per 100 g of chips, namkeen and instant noodles and 0.35 g per 100 g of soups and fast foods as the threshold. Thick tomato soup found in the market had about 12 times the salt threshold. It is eight times high in a prominent namkeen packet – Classic Nut Cracker. Against the 8 g fat per 100 g threshold, most chips and namkeens had 2-6 times fat. McDonald’s Big Spicy Paneer Wrap, Subway Paneer Tikka (6 inch) sandwich and four pieces of KFC Hot Wings had more than double the limit set for fat.

Actually, the junk food industry does not want you to know the danger of the food they sell and you consume.

All India Food Processors’ Association, opined that the “salt, sugar and fat content of packaged food depends on the taste requirement of the consumer and is not manufacturers’ choice.”

If the stakes for the junk food industry are high, then the stakes for public health are even higher. FSSAI must acknowledge that industry’s interest is not above our health and well-being. A sound and well-rounded regulation must come into effect, and urgently.

FSSAI has to learn and adapt from the global best practices. Countries are learning that too many labels do not work. Instead, warning labels are the best option.

Another concern is that so many numbers on the front could mislead consumers. Many countries are choosing to introduce warning labels, which are marked prominently for each nutrient. This is the global best practice.

Chile’s warning label is a black and white octagonal sign to flag packaged foods with excess calories or nutrients. The label is easy to understand. It does not contain numbers and needs no calculations. All that it says is: ‘High in sugar’ or ‘High in calories’.

If a product is high in two ingredients, it will be highlighted through two octagons. At one glance, it warns the consumer how healthy or unhealthy a product is. Consumption of per capita carbonated beverages in Chile dropped by 24.9%. The warnings are big in size and occupy a substantial part of FoP and placed on the upper-right side of the pack with a white contrast border to the black labels. This enables clear identification.

Such a label can succeed in India because a big section of the population here is illiterate or cannot read English, the most used language. FoP labels for vegetarian or non-vegetarian food have been quite successful. FSSAI stick your neck out and put things in shape.