Fruit merchants under the scanner

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, May 4, 2014

Use of chemicals to ripen mangoes

Food safety officials have launched State-wide inspection of godowns of wholesale fruit merchants following complaints that mangoes from neighbouring States, which have been artificially ripened using chemicals, are being brought into Kerala in huge quantities. Squads led by Assistant Food Safety Commissioners have been conducting inspections in all districts but no evidence of chemicals used for ripening fruits was found.

However, in Ernakulam district, in a joint raid conducted by the police and food safety officials, a merchant who was found to be stocking calcium carbide was arrested earlier and had been remanded by the court.

The officials have so far collected and sent for testing 37 samples of mangoes brought from other States, to determine if these had been sprayed with any chemicals.

So far, 69 wholesale fruit godowns have been inspected.

How safe are fruits & veggies bought from local markets?

Even after so much talk and research around public health and food, it’s disappointing to see that food safety remains one of the issues that is often neglected.

On April 30th, a plea has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking an immediate ban on the sale of fruits and vegetables, which contain artificial colour and harmful preservatives. A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice R.S. Endlaw, agreeing to hear the PIL, posted the plea for May 21 and clubbed it with another petition that relates to pesticides in fruits and vegetables.

The PIL filed by advocate Sugriv Dubey alleged that fruits and vegetables sold in Delhi are "quoted with carbohydrate and other cancerous chemicals to increase their life span". The plea said that the authorities have not taken any step to insure the quality of food being sold in markets here are safe for consumption.

"Not a single sample of mango sold during the entire season has been taken into custody by the authorities to ensure that those coated with carbohydrates are not sold in the market," it stated.

In another shocking case, a court came down heavily on food adulteration terming it a menace to public health while sentencing a senior citizen to 18 months jail for mixing synthetic colour with pulses.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Rao said: "Adulteration of food is a menace to public health," as he convicted and sentenced 66-year-old Satya Prakash Jain under various sections of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Jain was also slapped with a fine of Rs.10,000. He was charged with selling arhar dal (pulse) adulterated with synthetic colour tartrazine in August 2004. The pulses are polished with chemicals to make them shinywhile ignoring how injurious these can be to our health when consumed.

"The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act has been enacted with the aim of eradicating the anti-social evil and for ensuring purity in articles of food," the court observed.

It added that the aim of the act is to protect citizens from those who in the guise of respectable trades jeopardize the health and well-being of innocent customers. "The adulterators are a serious risk to the society," the judge said.

Consumers are best advised to carefully check the fruits and veggies and purchase only from trusted shops. Wash the foods thoroughly before consumption. Some suggest using a blend of vinegar and water (1:3) to clean the vegetables which helps to kill the bacteria.

On Tuesday, The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) launched a drive to upgrade the hygiene level of street food vendors in the national capital. The drive that started in the Sarojini Nagar market in south Delhi will focus on providing training to the street food vendors in safe handling of the street food.

Around 120 such vendors have applied for registration under the Food Safety Act 2011 and will be trained by NASVI in safe handling of food. "This is the beginning of their efforts to make entire Delhi a heaven for street food lovers", said NASVi national co-ordinator Arbind Singh.

He said that NASVI plans to rope in all the street food vendors of Delhi and create many such Safe Food Zones.

7,640 kg mangoes worth `8L seized in Pune

•  FDA suspects ‘carbide-ripened’ fruit has flooded Pune market
• A team of FDA officials checks mango samples at Market Yard on Friday Snehil Sakhare DNA

Pune: On Akshaya Tritiya, the day when Hindu rituals mark the beginning of the mango eating feast, officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) carried out a raid in the Market Yard area and seized a whopping 7,640 kg mangoes suspected to be ripened with the help of calcium carbide. So, the next time you reach out for that juicy fruit, think again as FDA officials suspect that thousands of kilos of carbide-ripened mangoes, which could be hazardous to health, have been supplied to Pune market.
Acting on a tip-off, FDA officials on Friday raided some five stalls in Market Yard where hordes of citizens visit daily to buy fruits and vegetables in bulk at wholesale prices. 
Speaking to dna, Shashikant Kekare, joint commissioner (Food) FDA said, “Around noon we started the raids in various shops and at five places we found the calcium carbide chemical in which the Alphonso mangoes were kept for ripening. We seized 7,640 kg mangoes worth around Rs 8 lakh from these shops besides calcium carbide weighing 13.5 kg.”
He said that the mango samples have been sent for laboratory testing and cases will be lodged against the shop owners after the lab report is received. Dilip Sangat, assistant commissioner (Food), FDA said, “The mangoes were kept in bags containing calcium carbide components. This process of artificial ripening is banned under the provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. The shop owners were selling such mangoes in the range of Rs 150 to Rs 200 per kg. The fruit had been supplied to Pune market from Ratnagiri and Karnataka.”

How to check the fruit

* Naturally-ripened mangoes are not uniformly yellow in colour and may have green patches
* Carbide-ripened mangoes have a powdery surface and are uniformly yellow in colour 
* Unlike naturally-ripened mangoes, the adulterated fruit is warm when touched

Dangers of calcium carbide

* Calcium carbide, say health experts, can cause neural problems by affecting oxygen supply to the brain. 
* Once dissolved in water, it produces acetylene gas which acts as an asyphixant and may affect the neurological system by inducing prolonged hypoxia. 
* This leads to headaches, mood disorders, dizziness and mental confusion.

New method to ripen mangoes

RIGHT WAY: A vendor checking the quality of mangoes in Tuticorin

A new and legitimate method of ripening mangoes has been introduced.

Food Safety Officers stepped in to guide vendors for ensuring the quality of mangoes.

The vendors were trained to use ethylene to ripen mangoes. Ethylene, secreted from mango trees, was used in liquid form to apply on mangoes, District Designated Officer, Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), M. Jagadis Chandrabose told The Hindu here on Friday.

The ethylene liquid should be sprayed on mangoes and it would make mangoes ripen in a day or two thus making them fit for consumption as per FSSA norms.

Ethylene produces natural gas initially but ripens mangoes, kept in a favourable atmosphere.

Ten ml of ethylene liquid needs to be dissolved in ten litres of water for spraying it on considerable number of mangoes. With this, sweetness, nutritional value and palatability of the fruit would remain intact, he said.

Explaining adverse effects of artificially ripened mangoes done with the help of calcium carbide, a harmful chemical compound, he said the latter would emit acetylene gas causing health disorder like ulcer, insomnia, loss of appetite.

Such practices were adopted by vendors to skip warehousing expenditure and make a fast buck. Consumption of such mangoes might lead to cancer, he said.

With such a substance, mangoes could ripe within eight hours.

These mangoes would be colourful and attractive but its pulp would not be sweet, Dr. Chandrabose said. He added that surprise raids would be conducted in stalls to check any illegal method of ripening mangoes.

Safety checks at mango godowns in Erode

Fruit stalls in Erode district were checked for quality by the Food Safety Department officials on Friday.
Officials of the Department of Food Safety and Drug Administration conducted checks at mango godowns for adherence to quality norms in the city on Friday morning.
A team led by District Officer for Food Safety and Drug Control G. Karunanidhi checked 15 godowns in order to ensure that the mangoes were not ripened using carbide stones.
As the mangoes have just started arriving, we wanted to ensure that only naturally ripened mangoes are kept in the godowns, Mr. Karunanidhi said.

Supply drop hikes tender coconut price by Rs 5-10; Current price Rs 35

The price of tender coconut has gone up by Rs 5-10 due to the high demand for it (as summer has commenced) and the drop in its supply. It is now priced at Rs 35.

While their sales haven’t been affected as a result of the hike, Mumbai’s tender coconut vendors claimed that the wholesale price has gone up sharply in the last one month.

“In the past, we would procure coconuts at Rs 18-22 per unit. At the wholesale market, they are now sold for Rs 28 per unit,” a retailer informed.

Unlike other fruit, tender coconut is not directly controlled by the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) market.

The commodity is sold at the wholesale price in a number of places across Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. But the price rise has been attributed to the low yield, among other factors.

Dipti Nair, marketing manager, Coconut Development Board of India (CDB), reiterated that the sharp decrease in the output last year had pushed up the prices.

The southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are the leading suppliers of tender coconut.

“Andhra Pradesh is, in fact, the leading supplier of tender coconut not only in South India, but across the country as well,” Nair said.

In the past, Karnataka and Kerala were the main suppliers of the nut to Mumbai, but now, the nuts these states deal in are primarily used to manufacture oil.

This was stated was a CDB official, who added that the cost of transportation has gone up, resulting in the drop in the supply of the nuts to the Mumbai market.

The demand for tender coconut water, which is not only a refreshing drink but also nutritious, has seen a tremendous increase in the last few weeks.

Nair said, “Tender coconut water is rich in a number of healthy nutrients, which enhance the metabolic rate and immunity of the body.”

Raju Gupta, a Vashi-based tender coconut water retailer, said the price of tender coconut water was likely to increase as the temperature rose.

“In December, the per unit cost of tender coconut was Rs 25. In the last four months, it has risen by about 40 per cent,” he added.

The daily consumption of tender coconut water was dependent upon the weather. A vendor said that it decreased in winter and witnessed a sharp rise in summer.

He estimated that approximately six to seven lakh nuts are sold in the western metropolis and its suburbs.