: After the rumour about dog meat in biryani died down with the arrest of an MBA student who created the fake news, officials are still in a quandary about the sample of meat sent for testing to Telangana State Food Safety Laboratory (FSL).
“We don’t have facilities to test the meat and find out if it is dog or any other animal’s as it would require analysing the DNA of the sample. So, we have forwarded the meat sample to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology for analysis and we are awaiting the results,” said an official at the FSL, the apex body for food analysis in the State.
The FSL functions from a small building at Nacharam without even a functioning telephone or internet connection.
The absence of genetic testing facility at the State’s premier food safety lab is a cause for concern in the age of genetically modified food and issues about food origin. “This is a free testing lab and we test the food for nutrient value and edibility,” said an official.
Across the world, DNA testing of food samples is the norm for detecting traces of contaminants.
In the immediate aftermath of dog meat rumour, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had picked up multiple samples both cooked as well as raw from different locations of the hotel and sent them for testing. “The results will be known within a week or fortnight,” officials had said. “The sample is in circulation and we are yet to get the results. Once we have the result, we will get in touch with you,” said GHMC Chief Veterinary Officer P. Venkateshwar Rao on Wednesday.
CCMB officials were unavailable for comment on the status of the sample testing.
