Food safety: Consumers must take greater ownership

The theme for World Food Safety Day 2024 was ‘Prepare for the unexpected’ which aimed to focus on food safety incidents that can happen due to accidents, inadequate controls, food fraud or natural events. All four are legitimate causes for concern and deserve our attention. The theme is understandably very broad-based to accommodate a wide range of food safety challenges that must be understood from a global perspective. However, food is also a very local subject and therefore the ‘micro’ is as important as the ‘macro’, if not more. And then there is the question of our eating habits, which may not necessarily come under food safety, but in my view must be a big part of any discussion we have around food and its impact on our health.

Of the four big issues that this year’s theme addresses, two stand out in the Indian context – inadequate controls and food fraud. Food safety in India is regulated by the oversight of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a statutory body that lays down the standards, regulates the manufacture, storage, distribution, import and sale of food, and is also empowered to facilitate food safety. But like all institution-based mechanisms, it also has its limitations and to expect FSSAI to ensure every morsel of food we consume is safe is not practical. For example, packaged juices that contain only 10% fruit pulp are officially considered safe to consume and pass for real fruit or fruit juice by regulatory standards but are considered misleading according to recently issued dietary guidelines by the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Nutrition.

And then we have the even more serious issue of food adulteration or food fraud which includes crimes like counterfeiting and product tampering that makes them unfit for human consumption.

Laws and institutions to uphold them are necessary, but to rely only on them to protect us from unsafe food is quite imprudent. That brings us to a bigger issue – the choices we make as consumers, which is a lot more complex than we may consider it to be. There are a few simple things we can do to protect ourselves from unsafe food but are largely ignored. For example, when we buy packaged food, our eyes usually look for only two or three pieces of information such as price, weight and expiry date. How often do we read the label to see if the ingredients are safe for consumption? More often than not we pass that responsibility to big brand names by simply presuming that they place consumer welfare above all else, which in reality may not always be the case. Did we really have to wait for the government to step in to realise that some popular ‘health drinks’ were loaded with sugar when simply reading the label would have sufficed in the first place?

Food safety has been the elephant in the room for far too long in India and it has only gotten fatter in recent years. According to one recent study, Indians are eating a lot less of home-cooked food and spending a lot more on out-of-home consumption and processed foods. In the last decade alone this has gone up from around 40% to 50% of our food budget, says the report. What this means is, that we are letting go of our control over the quality of the food we are eating. Speed of delivery, price and how other customers have ranked the food or restaurant seem to matter more than the quality of the food itself. This too is a food safety issue.

Until the choices we make about food change, the safety factor will remain a challenge. If we choose convenience over quality and nutrition, we must at least be aware of the fact that we are inviting a host of problems too. The single common thread running through all the food safety challenges we discussed so far is our apathy towards the quality of what we choose to eat. External rail guards like laws, institutions, and even food labels can guarantee the safety of food only up to a point. Understanding where our food comes from, how it was grown/processed, how much of ‘shelf-life’ are we willing to accept as safe can have far-reaching impact on the safety of our food. As consumers, the choice is still completely ours.

This article is authored by Shashi Kumar, CEO & co-founder, Akshayakalpa Organic.