Be it our busy lifestyles or sheer laziness, we seem to be resorting to the easy way out by consuming ready-to-eat products despite being aware of hazardous preservatives used to store them for months together (“T.N., Gujarat also join Maggi ban wagon” and Editorial, both June 5). Our obsession with instant foods has provided an opportunity for food manufacturers to cash in on our weakness. Ironically, some of these advertisements promoting these products claim to have been filmed in research labs where celebrities go out of their way to certify the purity of the ingredients. The least food regulatory authorities can do now is to enforce strict guidelines as far as all food products and their consumption are concerned.
Ippili Santhosh Kumar,
Hyderabad
It is a mystery how many more ‘unsafe’ food products continue to be marketed across the country. Though it may be next to impossible for the enforcement machinery to monitor all food products, the question still remains why periodical inspections and tests of food products were never undertaken in the first place, even by drawing random samples from the market. Also, if celebrities can be proceeded against for endorsing such unsafe products, will not the same yardstick apply to the media for featuring dubious claims?
K. Muthiah,
Madurai
The domino-like ban effect on the food product in question only highlights the lacunae in our food safety regulations and enforcement. It is the responsibility of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to investigate not only the other brands of the food manufacturer in question but also other instant foods such as soups, schezuan sauce mixes, vegetable/chicken cubes, masala oats, cornflakes, macaroni and pasta. It is also important that the food safety regulators and local governments know that various ‘Chinese food’ hawkers and restaurants use MSG in generous amounts. MSG, also known as ‘Ajinomoto’, is freely available in the market. An unbiased list of safe ingredients is the need of the hour.
B. Venkatram,
Hyderabad
