Food items containing artificial and natural flavours appear to be the latest health threat adding to Dengue and other epidemics that are sweeping the country at present, according to media reports quoting health and nutrition specialists.
These synthetic flavours are included to make these food items tastier but their chemicals are extremely harmful to health and could even cause cancer, they added. Some of these food items are also far from what they claim to be in their labels and markings.
According to the report, certain foods may not be made with the same ingredients as marked in their labels. For example, some tomato sauces are not made from tomatoes but a substitute while dyes and colourings are used to turn white sugar into brown sugar, the report adds. This certainly is a dangerous development with the children being the most vulnerable to the risks since items such as confectionery and chocolates too fall into this category.
Prompt steps should be taken by the concerned authorities to identify food items that are most likely to be tampered with in this manner and take them off the shelves of shops and supermarkets. The advertising of food items too should be brought under scrutiny since various gimmicks are being used by manufacturers to foist artificially enhanced products on the public.
The Government is to bring in stringent regulations on commercial advertisements on food, from January 1 next year with the sanction of the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to be made mandatory for selected food advertisements.
According to the new regulations, every health claim and Nutrient Function Claim must have prior approval of the DGHS. In addition, no label or advertisement relating to any food shall indicate directly or indirectly that such food is a cure for any illness. Further, no label shall in the description of any food, bear the word ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ thereon unless such food consists of unmixed, unadulterated or unprocessed products with no additives. For example, Pure Ceylon Tea should be just that, with nothing added.
This is a long overdue step which, had it been taken at the appropriate time, would have put a halt to the commercial exploitation of the unsuspecting public who all this time had been duped by commercial interests by attractive and irresistible advertisements of consumer goods which were far removed from what these ads really claimed about them.
The public was in fact led by the nose into paying good money for little or nothing by way of quality, content or value by the glib rhetoric of these advertisements. There are advertisements on confectioneries which claim that they have minimal sugar and are even safe for diabetics. But this has been found to be only a half truth.
There are also labels on foods proclaiming these were cholesterol free but with no authentication of the claim by any medical authority. Even in the case of alcoholic drinks, although the proof of the strength is marked on the label, there is no guarantee that this is actually the case.
The public has started taking things at face value as it were, where the quality of goods is concerned irrespective of their harmful nature. The proposed new regulations, therefore, will serve the purpose of not only sparing the public from futile and wasteful expenses but also protect them from the dangers of acquiring illnesses or aggravating existing illnesses.
The manufacturers and business interests also make it a point to insert food and drink ads at prime time, slotted at intervals during popular teledramas when there are large audiences and to make them as credible and authentic as possible. It is too late when the public realises that nothing that the ads claimed had come to pass and it was money down the drain.
Even other goods too should be brought under the ambit of the new regulations. Today there are various quacks and frauds who advertise various cures and quick fixes in a bid to make a fast buck at the expense of a gullible public.
There are advertisements that appear on television offering services to help alcoholics quit the habit. Offers are also on to help fix all diseases such as cancer and diabetes. There are also at present creams and gels being advertised to improve one’s complexion despite frequent warnings by medical experts of the dire side effects of using these so-called remedies.
Why cannot the DGHS look into this matter as well, since it really concerns a health matter? In fact the whole business of dubious advertising has to be probed and measures put in place to prevent the public from being duped.
The restriction to be imposed on promotion of food to children under 12 is certainly a wise step. Children are of an impressionable age and could easily be lured to being addicted to fast foods that are extremely harmful to health and harbingers of diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure etc. These advertisements are also attractively packaged to make them irresistible to children. Parents too should be made wise to the gimmicks of commercial interests.
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