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Running a shocking video that is doing the round on the social sites has raised question marks on food safety standards in the region.. The video was filmed last week near the highly popular Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar city where people were shocked to see a dead mouse floating in a tin of frying oil prepared by a street food seller. The J&K Police has since arrested the vendor, and it has brought into light more cases of hygiene violation in food vendors in the region.
The street food is a wide range within the food culture of the Kashmiris where one can get crispy nadru monje as well as tasty barbeques. However, while such meals may be quick and cheap, they are compensated for by various health consequences. Food poisoning is on the increase and experts have attributed it to negligence and complacency.
Need for Food Safety in Kashmir Worst as Dead Mouse Found in Cooking Oil (ETV Bharat)
There are approximately 14,744 registered food business establishments in the Valley coming under the J&K Drug & Food Control Organisation. It includes the street vendors who can get license from the food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) by merely providing identity such as an Aadhaar card, a photo and an online application.
While there is an increase in the number of vendors, this is occasioned by joblessness, poor legislation on food hygiene has encouraged unhygienic practices. Most of them, including the identified stall at the Hazratbal, lacked proper hygiene hence presenting a great danger to the health of the consumers.
In a similar vain, authorities at the Food and Safety Department stated they were not advised by authorities in the J&K Waqf Board where these vendors or the accused person was operating on that day.
Shops, restaurants, and eateries across the Kashmir valley have also churning out frequent complaints gastroenteritis and other diseases that are associated with foodborne illnesses.
ETV Bharat
Food safety scare leads people to question hygiene standards in Srinagar (ETV Bharat)
Dr. S Muhammad Salim Khan from the Department of Community Medicine of Government Medical College Srinagar opines it is due to poor hygiene and further stressed that we need to enforce more stringent measures in the case of water pollution and people must be made aware of these issues.
To top it all, he notes that, simple practices such as washing the hands before eating also help minimize the exposure to food borne diseases.
However, the issue herein goes beyond the street food. Meat from the hillbound animal is consumed profusely in the valley, with around two million sheep imported annually into the state in a business that is estimated to be over three hundred and fifty million dollar. But most of it is sold freely and exposed to dust and bacteria, among other things.
KAMPALA This is because, barbeque stalls have been flooding the market despite the numerous and imminent dangers that customers face whenever they are served the food product.
People consume barbeque food from stalls although it poses a safety concerns (ETV Bharat)
This, as stated by Dr Khan, leads to infections, and he further advances that all those persons who handle foods have the potential of transferring diseases due to unclean hands, thereby stressing the importance of hygiene practices.
According to the World health Organisation food borne diseases fall under the category of emergencies due to diseases causing pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or toxic substance in food. In the world today a third of the population consumed contaminated food leading to illness and of which 420000 are killed each year. It pointed out that most of them are due to consuming foods that are contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or dangerous chemicals; stating that unsafe food leads to more than 200 diseases including diarrhoea to cancer.
India has suffered the most from this, particularly from the way its democracy had been manipulated by one man. According to FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) the number of deaths due to unsafe food is 420000 and one in every ten persons is affected by food borne illness approximately 600 million. According to a research released in The Lancet in 2019, India has been placed second to China regarding fatalities resulting from substandard food stuffs.
A renowned physician and Director of Naseem Medical Centre in Srinagar, Dr Sarosh Ahmad Khan also lists some vices with street food; the use of very high amounts of salt, monosodium glutamate, banned food colouring material [Tartrazine], and the use of more cooking oil than required.
“Instead of throwing away the oil, it is recycled which escalates the levels of trans-fat and thereby the threat of heart disease,” he explained to ETV Bharat.
For example, poor quality of frozen chicken from outside the valley for instance is very dangerous to the health, this according to the head of the flying doctors Dr. Khan.
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has come out with data which reveals that consumer diseases in the country are substantially the result of unhealthy diets and 56.4% of the diseases in India are borne out of bad food habits.
Kashmir is no exception. In this work, Dr Khan points out that the new killer diseases in the region include hypertension, diabetes, fatty liver, and high cholesterol. He discusses the fact that people’s reliance on non-prescription drugs like pantop or pantoprazole to reduce stomach acid as a result of poor conduct on their part is directly related to risky eating habits.
The authorities claim to have intensified the contraction of sanitize measures regarding the food safety standards. Others sources, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu & Kashmir Food & Drug Control Organisation, Shagufta Jalal who said they imposed more than 42 lakh rupees for the violations in the previous year for issues of food adulteration or unhygienically practices.
‘Besides, we are enrolled the food handlers to fast-track training on hygiene practice’. She continued, “Our team also conduct inspection for the said establishment.” Yet, she agrees that the violations still happen Her response leads me to believe this.
An experienced employee stated that new cadets are hired and thereafter fail to secure promotions due to lack of qualification in the police department. Of the 56 key posts in Food Safety Officer whose duty is to conduct inspections in their regions, only 28 are in place at the moment. This means that the smooth management of the areas is in the hand of the officers, but with large areas to scan, structural inspections cannot be thoroughly done.
“What we have done is that we had to ban the use of newspapers which are used in the preparation of Foods prepared by street vendors,” Shagufta also mentioned.
