Government of India is continuously coming heavily down on the increased incidents of adulteration and contamination in edibles these days. Recently, a sudden drive of examining edible oils was conducted by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India- country’s apex body to ensure food safety.
It was a Pan-India survey conducted within a bracket of two days between 25 August and 27 August.
This survey covered over 4,500 samples and 16 varieties of edible oil, including mustard, coconut, palm, olive and blended oil.
All the regions of India was covered under the initiative ranging from hilly terrains of Ladakh, Arunanchal pradesh, Daman and Diu and Andman (UT).
An all encompassing size of samples were taken from all the terrains.
Samples were taken from all the hypermarkets, supermarkets, local markets and individual producers or company based plants all were included.
“The survey was conducted by the State Food Safety department officials. At least 50 samples were collected from the metro cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata and 6-8 samples each in cities and districts, other than the metros. FSSAI had shared the detailed guidelines and SOPs for conducting the survey as well as procedure of sample collection with the Commissioners of Food Safety in all States/ UTs…” a health ministry statement read.
The report, which is much awaited now will certainly be helping to actually plot the contamination in the “magic liquid” of everyone’s food. The survey will also help government to get the real time status of the concentration of contaminants and most prone location in the contamination practices could be located easily.
Real objective behind this sudden initiative is to ensure pure line of Oils in the food items consumed by the citizens of the country.
“A comprehensive strategy for testing of these samples through the State Food Testing Laboratories or FSSAI notified food testing labs (including private NABL accredited) to analyze various parameters including Fatty Acid composition as well as adulteration of any other oils or harmful or extraneous substance/ chemical has been developed. The test results are expected in a month’s time,” an FSSAI statement read.