Towards Healthful Cooking Medium
It's laudable that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has focused its gaze on edible oils used in every household in the country, right after addressing the safety and purity of milk.
The demand for consumption of edible oils is growing continuously. If one looks at the per capita
(PC) oil consumption in the country it has increased rapidly – from 15.8 kg in 2012-13 to 19.5 kg in 2015-16 which further rose to 19.7 kg in 2019-20. One important reason cited for this increase is a marked improvement in living standards. The total demand for edible oils is also growing due to the rising population. Due to these two factors, edible oil consumption usually rises by two to three per cent per annum. It increased from 198.24 lakh tonnes in 2012-13 to 240.71 lakh tonnes in 2019-20.
When the consumption of any commodity is so high and it is an essential ingredient in daily food then its safety becomes an issue of more concern. All precautions are required to ensure that only safe and standardised edible oils reach the consumers. From this perspective collecting samples of the oils and doing a nationwide survey of safe oil is an important step taken by the FSSAI and it deserves appreciation for the same.
Outcome of the survey conducted in August
2021 were known recently. One of the outcomes is of serious concern as 24.2 per cent samples failed to clear the quality matrix. This was an indication of possible adulteration of cooking oils. They were non-compliant with respect to the presence of hydrocyanic acid and failed to meet the prescribed limits of refractive index, BR reading, fatty acid profile and iodine value.
FSSAI had collected 4,461 oil samples from 587 districts and four metros. 2.42 per cent of these samples were found to be non-compliant with safety parameters. Some other important lacunae noticed by the FSSAI include failure to meet the standards pertaining to shelf life and additives, label misbranding and blending with other oils or materials.
In the label misbranding category, 12.8 per cent samples alone were non-compliant on fortification claims regarding the presence of vitamin A and D.
Limits prescribed by food safety and standards rules for presence of Aflatoxins, pesticide residues and heavy metals were also found to be bypassed in some samples.
In case of mixing with other oils, though the
FSSAI has allowed blending of different oils, there are percentage norms and deceleration norms. The oil producers have to observe the norm of how much percentage of oil is to be blended with how much and then have to say this specifically on label.
About a year ago in Tamil Nadu, the food safety authorities had found groundnut oil and sesame oil packets blended with palm oil mixing up to 70 per cent. In some cases only essence was added to palm oil to give the semblance of sesame or groundnut oil. The authorities had even found wrong representation on labels or fine print – giving the information in very small font, making it difficult to read.
The challenge for the FSSAI as well as food safety authorities of the states is to stop all such practices to ensure that the consumers get safe oil and equally important is that they get accurate information of the ingredients properly on the label to make a wise decision.
Along with safety, an equally important issue is to reduce the consumption of the oil since having such a high consumption is very unhealthy. Per capita consumption needs to be brought down much lower than the 2012-13 level. Experts suggest that it should come down to 12 kg and even less to improve health indicators.
The FSSAI is already running a campaign encouraging lower use of salt, sugar and oils, which needs to be intensified. Health issues arising due to consumption of unsafe oils and also from quantitative increase is, indeed, a cause for concern.
Stringent punitive action could bring an end to the sale of unsafe oils and reduce their consumption with the right education and awareness drives, outlining the benefits of a healthy cooking medium used sparingly.