Ice-cream beats the heat, but FDA has a word of caution

20 samples of juices, ice candy, cold beverages draw officials' attention to 'substandard' quality.

With the sweltering heat bogging you down, you might just be tempted to lay your hands on an ice-cream or a glass of juice ready to be served to you by a roadside vendor or a food joint.

However, officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have a word of caution to share – watch out before you reach for these soothers. It could be infected with invisible germs that could make you sick to the gut.

Over the last ten days, FDA officials have spanned across the twin-township of Pimpri-Chinchwad and parts of Pune as part of a special drive to check food quality of cold beverages, iced gola’s and ice-creams which has maximum demand during the summer.

And the experienced eyes of the food safety inspectors have been drawing at least two samples on a daily basis which are suspected of being ‘sub-standard’ food item.

So far, 20 such samples of juices, ice candy, cold beverages, mango pulp, ice-creams etc have been drawn.

“However it takes at least 14 days for the food safety laboratory to send us the analysis report and hence we are yet to take any action,” said assistant commissioner (food), SS Desai.

When asked about the reason for drawing the samples out of hundreds of outlets, Desai said that it could be a variety of reasons from non-maintenance of hygiene, suspicion in raw material used to storage of food items that could lead to contamination.

“For example, if the juice is too sweet then it could also be an indication that saccharine is used and not sugar. If a vendor is serving kulfi, but the metal mold that it was prepared in has got rusted, it can lead to health problems. There are many such reasons which draw our attention,” said Shashikant Kekare, joint commissioner (food), FDA Pune.

He added that there have been cases where the pricing has been suspicious compared to the raw materials used. “We have drawn samples of 2-3 mango juices which were being sold at low prices which is not possible compared to the price of raw materials. Now we are awaiting the reports,” added Kekare.

While the drive in Pimpri-Chinchwad area is nearly over and parts of Fergusson College Road in Pune city checked, now the drive will fan out to other areas in the city, especially the ‘khau gallis’.

Meanwhile, FDA officials said that citizens must remain alert as recently two cases were detected by such tip-offs received from citizens.

“If one finds that the price of the product is less compared to the price of the raw materials, they can alert us. They can also alert us if they find a difference in taste, storage of raw materials is dirty or the area where the food is served is unhygienic. Hygiene levels of food handlers and servers should be checked,” said Kekare.

As Published in Wordpress