Is the wheat to day radically different from that produced 50 years ago? What is the truth?

Wheat is an ancient food grain that existed even 1000 years ago and the explosive growth of gluten free foods in the United States with no rhyme or reason is sending scientists on a leather hunt to fix the real culprit which creates the so called demand pull for gluten free food products. It has become fashionable to day to blame wheat for every ailment one can think of! This is reminiscent of a similar situation years ago when fat was the villain on which blame was placed for all human ailments. This leads us to question the logistics of opinion creation that makes a particular food constituents look dangerous to many people. Logically one must ask regarding the role played by scientists in this opinion making? Unfortunately some scientists themselves are responsible in creating fictional notions regarding risks posed by certain foods to the health of the consumer and this is compounded by physicians who rides this bandwagon by advising their patients to avoid these ingredients to overcome their physical discomforts for better health. 

A typical example is the so called gluten allergy which rightly or wrongly has spawned a multibillion dollar industry making fortunes right, left and the center, hawking hundreds of products containing no gluten. According the data put out by the US government there are hardly about 3 million people in that country who are really afflicted by celiac disease for whom gluten consumption can be lethal. As against this the gluten free foods are bought by more than 30 million people and annual turnover of this industry has almost doubled to $ 15 billion in 5 years time since 2009! While it is good going for the industry so far, what is intriguing is why the government is not frowning upon such happenings which may have far reaching implications. Not even a single scientific study has been able to pinpoint that gluten is bad for health and avoiding it in the regular diet may be a wiser option. What is the role of scientists in this whole sordid happenings?

It is not that scientists are not doing any thing to unravel the mystery of gluten free foods and their popularity in the US. There are many studies that attempted to bring to a conclusion regarding any bad effect gluten, contained in wheat, might have on human health. As usual scientific community is not capable to arrive at any unanimity on any controversial subject and gluten free food is no exception. One of the theories floating around talks about the genetic changes wheat must have undergone, creating a "bad" grain that causes allergy to some people. But this has been rebutted unambiguously by geneticists who confirm that wheat hundred years ago was same as it is to day and the fault may lie some where else. Modern agricultural practices have not done any harm to the wheat vis-a-vis wheat gluten. Naturally against such assertions backed up by irrefutable data are forcing the scientists to look for the cause of gluten allergy in other areas.

A culpable culprit was identified in the socalled FODMAPS components present in wheat. These are fermentable carbohydrates like oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols which are present in wheat and which after fermentation in the large intestine produce gas and pull in more water creating stomach discomfort experienced by many people after consuming wheat products. Some isolated studies do pont out to such a possibility but it is doubtful whether such an interpretation can be realistic universally looking at those avoiding wheat. Even if rue it is practically impossible to create wheat flours free of FODMAPS. Who knows next "fad" may be FODMAPS free wheat products if the industry smells money in this area! 

Bread was made earlier days using whole wheat flour before the advent of the modern "white" flour and there were no reported cases of gluten allergy to normally healthy consumers 50 years ago. It is only since 2011 that gluten free food industry has been seeing a boom though the trend was perceptible beginning the year 2000. Modern day bread is made using many ingredients which were never used during the preparation of the traditional bread. Among the ingredients used now include vital gluten, bleached flours and a variety of dough conditioners so that an absolutely white bread with "highly liked" features like texture, chewing quality and taste is obtained. Why these ingredients are not being blamed for the allergy for which the wheat grain alone is being blamed? Is this not an anachronism? In the name of "good" bread vital gluten is routinely added to the recipes that ensures good "raising" and texture. Do we know any thing about the ill effects of vital gluten that is routinely added during dough making? Is vital gluten as digestible as natural gluten formed from gliadin and glutenin during slow kneading and fermentation? Could vital gluten be a culprit in stomach discomforts caused by modern wheat products?

What is lost in this gluten free food "Circus" is the long term consequences of more and more people switching over to these foods for imaginary reasons though they really do not need them? In the place of gluten the product formulations contain carbohydrates like starch and effectively reduce the protein content of the formulated final product. This is analogous to the situation 3-4 decades ago fat free food was a "fad" and these fat free or low fat products were richer in carbohydrates, which we know to day is not healthy as per to day's thinking. Gluten free foods like bread becomes a junk food adding to the health problems Americans are already facing currently. 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Food poisoning- How well the world is managing the food-borne diseases?

Food-borne pathogens, innumerable in number, cause a catalogue of diseases, many of them with potential to cause death. Why is that we are not able to prevent such food poisoning episodes totally inspite of enormous scientific knowledge and large resources at our disposal? The question is a difficult one to answer satisfactorily though many reasons can be cited. Think of the gigantic size of this sector spanning across more than 150 countries in 5 major continents. According to some estimates food processing industry produces more than 50, 000 products at any given time and at least 10% of these are replaced by new products using new technologies. In such a scenario where millions of hands are involved in handling the food from farm to the fork and an extended distribution spanning over 15000 Km where do we look for the culprits whenever a food poisoning episode breaks out? It is like picking a pin from a haystack! Still world has done reasonably well so far .

Globally the out put of processed foods is variably placed at 1.6 to 4.8 trillion  dollars from a raw material base worth 48 trillion dollars. How far these figures are reliable we do not know but by any standard the dimension of this sector is gigantic. If this is so how well we have done in controlling this scourge with the facilities, expertise and experience at our disposal?  World wide 2 billion cases of food borne disease incidences are reported every year though some doubts remain regarding such a high figure. Except in developed countries like the US, Europe, Australia etc the documentation of food-borne diseases incidences in most other countries, is a sham lacking credibility. USA reports that there were 47.8 million cases of food related incidences, working to about 1600 cases per 1 lakh population which highlights the seriousness of food poisoning in that country. Out of this 9.4 million cases were pathogen related, caused by 31 known bugs. Even after hospitalization and best medical care Americans are known to get, there were more than 3000 deaths which could not be prevented. In the UK there were 5.5 million food poisoning cases, almost 1 in 16 of the population affected by infection carried by the foods they consumed. Compare this with what is happening in Asia where there were 7 lakh deaths caused by spoiled foods, it is said!.

What are these pathogens about which world is so scared of? They can be bacteria, viruses, fungi etc which cause symptoms to appear in 12-72 hours. These symptoms include vomiting, fever, aches, diarrhea and others. How can these vectors gain access to foods? Through negligence in handling, processing, storage and due to bad sanitary environment. Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli 0157:H7 are the major causative organisms for a major part of the food poisoning cases reported in many countries. There are many other bugs like B.cereus, Listeria spp, Shigella spp, Streptococci spp, Staphylococcus spp and a few others pitching in to cause other food poisoning episodes. Bacteria like Clostridium botulinum, Clostridium perfringens and Bacillus cereus secrete enterotoxins which are poisonous while Aflatoxins and Ochratoxins are secretary products from fungi like Aspergillus parasiticus and Aspergillus flavus. If we know so much about these predators in our foods what holds us back to improve the process technologies to ensure their destruction totally? Unfortunately many food borne diseases are caused during post-processing phase of food handling which is outside the control of the manufacturers. 

One would assume that the food industry will be keen to deploy most reliable, fastest and lowest cost diagnostic tools to detect and eliminate pathogens from their raw materials, intermediate materials and final packed products.  Researchers from the US have claimed to have developed a new diagnostic tool for detecting the presence of bacteria, viruses and other pathogens precisely and quickly. The test is based on the accepted biological theory that each and every microorganism has a specific and unique biomarker in their cells that could be DNA or RNA and by targeting this marker through a specially designed biochip, presence of these vectors can be detected fast. Though the present stage of development is confined to single biochip for each individual pathogen, there appears to be technical feasibility of developing multiplex chips that has the ability to detect several pathogens at one go.

Probably the enthusiasm of the scientists was spurred by the sufferings of millions of people affected by food poisoning and naturally they assumed that the food industry would be the perfect market for their new innovation. The quick time test they developed is claimed to identify, several bugs including the dreaded E. coli 0157, which has caused a number of deadly outbreaks in the United States and other parts of the world. Their test also is supposed to identify other pathogens responsible for brucellosis also which results from eating undercooked meat or unpasteurized dairy products. Though their test was inexpensive and fairly fast, the food industry does not seem to be too impressed as the latter wanted even faster tests that could give results in a jiffy! 

Probably food industry does not want to save on the cost on the testing kit considering that the consequences of "not catching" the infection in time could be more disastrous in economic terms. A bench mark time of 2 hours was demanded to conclude the test which the above innovation was not able to achieve. That shifted the focus of the researchers to target medical industry where hospital sanitation is crucial to avoid infection of patients through ill maintained environment, furnishings, medical tools, foods served, human interface and many other sources. The test can also recognize the virus that causes Dengue fever, potentially valuable for surveillance activities both here and abroad, and human papillomavirus (HPV), which is linked to cervical and oral cancers. That is how a test targeted at food industry became a darling of the medical industry in no time. Thus food industry's loss became medical industry's gain! 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Consumer protection through insurance cover-Does it make any sense in India?

Consumer is the King, so proclaims almost all the industry players to convey the impression that they care for their clients more than any thing else!. But does the ground reality obtaining in India justify such a tall claim? Whether it is your street corner petty shop or the super duper glittering mall that is sprawling all over the country, one thing is common, that is, if you pay for buying a product, it is yours and yours only, no returns please! That is the fate of "King Consumer" at least in our country. Of course there are exceptions like the traditional family shops where there is "bonding" of friendship between you and the shop owner built over a long period of association and here returns are accepted, though some what reluctantly, if they are faulty or below expected standard. 

Have we ever heard of a product recall incidence in India during the last 71 years of our independence? Such a thing is unheard of in our country because this is like an orphaned nation with no one ready to take the responsibility of protecting the citizen from the marauding food fraudsters lurking all over the market place. On paper there are many rules and regulations put out by the Ministry of Health which the manufacturers and retailers of foods are "supposed" to be following but in practice, except for spooky offices in most town municipalities with grossly understaffed and under prepared  health departments having no clue regarding the law of the land vis-a--vis food safety. In a country of 125 crore, annual conviction rate of food fraudsters is hardly about 1000! There are thousands of cases pending before the courts for years to gether while the criminals roam freely around.

The brand new (2006 vintage!) FSSAI is roaring from Delhi that it would take stringent action on food adulterators and fraudsters with no mercy. Very good intention indeed! But ground reality is some thing different. It was only recently reported that in a prime urban conglomerate like Hyderabad there is no laboratory which can analyze samples supposed to be unsafe or below quality as, when or if picked up by the food inspectors, most of whom are conspicuous by their absence! The mantra of granting crores and crores of rupees to upgrade the infrastructure food inspection and safety enforcement is repeated ad nauseum with no visible evidence of implementing or improving the required facilities. 

In a country like the US there are well laid protocols accepted by the industry to remove from the market food products suspected to be unsafe and the industry covers itself with appropriate insurance protection against public litigation or prosecution by the consumer or the implementing agency. Besides most manufacturers work closely with the retailers to satisfy the customer regarding the quality of food sold and a dissatisfied consumer can always return the product for replacement or refund. Is this possible in India? Never, because the retailer can always deny that he has told it. There are dealers who sell blatantly date expired food products which may injure the consumer who will never be able to conclusively prove that the injury is caused by the food purchased from him.

A most interesting instance of commitment to safety by a country again comes from the US where there are farmers markets spread across the country offering to the consumers farm-fresh food conforming to standards laid down in the statute books. Since these farmers do not possess facilities to test their products in modern facilities, it is their experience that ensures their food is safe. In case there is any incidence of food poisoning or food related adverse episode, happening inadvertently, the farmer has adequate public liability insurance to cover damages caused by such cases. Look at India where there are thousands of mandis or shanties taking place with millions of consumers flocking there to buy their needs at prices much less than that prevailing in organized market places. Unlike American farmers market, where strict laws are there for only genuine farmers to partake in such markets, in Indian shandies there are more middlemen operating than farmers. Middle man is a curse in India who exploits both the farmer and the consumer by manipulating buying and selling prices!

As the conditions that exist in India to day, no citizen can claim protection from unscrupulous trading practices and are at the mercy of these elements day in and day out. Whether it is "mom and pop" or organized retailers or rural mandis, citizen is on his own to ward off such organized cheating and under such a condition how can development pundits expect the food industry to grow fast? Unless product return regime and product liability regulations take root in the country, most consumers will restrict their purchase to the absolute minimum and opt to cook at home rather than buying unreliable  processed products.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Dietary Supplements-The Damocles Sword hanging over users!

Man's eternal search for "pink health" can take him to any where at any risks but this is precisely the prime motivating factor for many unscrupulous industry players to market a variety of products with tall but unsubstantiated health claims on bringing about dramatic improvements, general or specific, in the health of the unsuspecting buyers. The government has the onerous responsibility to check this menace through regulatory controls which need to be science based. In many countries these peddlers of so called "well being" products have a free run because either there is no law to regulate them or the existing laws are ambivalent giving sufficient leeway to the lawyer community to argue their cases out in the court if at all they are caught! Why should any normal person take any supplements at all? What do the citizens understand when products with tall health claims are dangled before them? 

According to classical definition "dietary supplements are intended to provide nutrients that may other wise not be consumed". It is very clear that these supplements are not for those whose diet is balanced in terms of all nutrients required by human body and there fore they need to be taken only after consulting a physician regarding any deficiency symptoms detected by him. Unfortunately physicians are never brought into focus when consumers unilaterally decide to take them because of high pressure promotions and tall claims made by the industry. Look at  some of the most patronized supplements in the market to realize the dimension of the problem. Supplements are offered in the form of pills, capsules, powders, drinks, energy bars, food adjuncts etc containing a variety of health "supporting" materials like vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, essential amino acids, herbals and botanicals, enzymes, antioxidants, fish oils, probiotics etc. The multibillion dollar industry spanning the entire world market a staggering 55,000 and odd products under the supplement category and in a country like the US more than half the population consume one or more supplements almost every day! 

A million dollar question is what the hell the governments in many countries are doing except closing their eyes to the existence of this roaring industry making money left, right and the center with practically no conscience for selling products, most people do not need at all!.  According some respectable experts 90% of the health claims made by peddlers of such products are incorrect and unsubstantiated and to add insult to injury more than 30% of such products do contain unlisted steroids. USA is an astonishing country where people have unlimited liberty to do any thing with least control over them under the pretext that it is one of the oldest democracies in the world. In this "great" country any one can sell a supplement without permission from the safety enforcement authorities who will have to look at these products only when some injury is caused and reported! In contrast in Europe food supplements must be demonstrated to be safe in dosage and purity as being suggested by the manufacturer before marketing them. 

It is mind boggling that the Americans spend an estimated $32 billion on dietary supplements every year, attracted by unproven claims that various pills and powders will help them lose weight, build muscle and fight off everything from colds to chronic illnesses. Alarm bells are now being sounded about the magnitude of liver damage cases being reported across that country which are linked to supplements though many believe that a majority of supplements are generally safe. In recent years, critics of the industry have called for measures that would force companies to prove that their products are safe, genuine and made in accordance with strict manufacturing standards before they reach the market. An antiquated federal law enacted in 1994, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, "prevents" the Food and Drug Administration from approving or evaluating most supplements before they are sold. Usually the agency must wait until consumers are harmed before officials can remove products from stores. Because the supplement industry operates on the honor system, studies show, the market has been flooded with products that are adulterated, mislabeled or packaged in dosages that have not been studied for safety.

One encouraging feature of the supplement landscape in the US is that most of the products implicated in liver injuries were bodybuilding supplements spiked with unlisted steroids, and herbal pills and powders promising to increase energy and help consumers lose weight. Probably those peddling them are criminals who see a business opportunity to spike some products and sell them as dietary supplements. Probably it may be the fringe of the industry deflecting any wholesale blame of the entire industry. Many of the popular supplements like vitamins, minerals, probiotics and fish oil had not been linked to any definite patterns of adverse effects and there fore they have a case for continuing their business with out any restriction by government. the flip side of this enigma is that the FDA is alarmed by the fact that 70 percent of dietary supplement companies are not following basic quality control standards that would help prevent adulteration of their products and the likely consequences there of. Of the 55,000 supplements that are sold in the United States, only 170 or about 0.3 percent, have been studied closely enough to determine their common side effects. 

Common sense says that only when a product is  regulated by a government agency with appropriate technical competence, its benefits and side effects can be fully known based on which an informed decision can be taken by the consumer whether to take it or not. After all every day life is a balance of "risks and benefits" and it is the duty of any responsible government to make available such information to the citizen in a transparent manner. It is some thing like the "injurious" warning mandated to be printed on cigarette packs to warn the consumer about the dangers of smoking. Similarly once consumers of dietary supplements know about the consequences of consuming it, probably that may serve as a deterrent against buying the same which after all does not restrict his freedom of buying such products, if he still wants to go ahead.  

In India the situation is more complicated because the safety monitoring as being claimed by the entrusted agency is all but a sham with the food products themselves not being assessed for their safety let alone the dietary supplements! There are innumerable instances of many food products, some of them made by multinational companies claiming that they boost intelligence, make the children tall and strong, restores energy in few seconds after consuming, etc. Complicating the issue further there are an array of products being offered by the organized industry based on traditional Ayurveda system which can be considered as supplements and there are no regulations which control these products. It is time that the government of India wakes up to streamline the food products and food supplements industry through effective standardization and safety parameters that can prevent food related damage to the health of the citizens. .

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com 

IS THE US BECOMING THE CAPITAL OF FOOD POISONING?-A SCARY SCENARIO!

Why is that almost all food related poisoning incidences are reported from the developed world? The much maligned developing countries do not "boast" of even a single major out break of food poisoning though there might have been occasional reports of minor nature. why is that tourists from Western world are afraid of visiting many poor countries in the world where majority of the population is concentrated? Obviously because they are afraid of polluted atmosphere, unsafe water and food, unhygienic habitats and unreliable medical facilities. But look at the mortality rate due to food poisoning! Very few deaths are attributed to food poisoning, most fatalities attributed to diseases, infectious as well other types. Is there any convincing scientific reason for such a paradox? 

There is always the temptation to correlate affluence with food poisoning but is there really such a relationship? No one is sure though circumstantial evidence do point out such a nexus. Most of the pathogenic bacteria involved in food poisoning are more frequently reported in animal foods like meat and egg and this naturally raises the question whether food poisoning has any connection with increased meat production and consumption. Since there are no cultural constraint in mixing meat products and non-meat products as most consumers in the West are meat eaters, scrupulous segregation of these products may not happen in many cases and such a situation can cause cross contamination from these sources. Similarly irrigation water used in cultivation can become contaminated in areas where slaughter houses and meat handling facilities are located and migration of bacteria from water into fruits and vegetables is a distinct possibility.  This can explain frequent reporting of contamination of fresh produce such as Spinach, Tomato, Peanuts, Cucumber etc in the US.

One must recall the recent out break of virulent E.coli related food poisoning which killed several persons besides causing damage to the health of hundreds of people in Europe, boasting of high standards of living and modern living facilities and still it is not clear what really caused such an incidence. Though the blame game was going on for some time regarding the culprit for the incidence, finally culminating in putting the blame on an Egyptian consignment of Fenugreek imported for sprouting, the moot question is why it did not happen in the country of origin and why the "monster killer" waited till it landed in Europe to bare its fangs? This is scary situation where no one seems to know which pathogen is going to strike when and where! If a small out break like this could claim several lives in Europe with high standards of living, what if the same kind of poisoning happens in a thickly populated country like India or China? 

Most recent food poisoning was reported from the US where the innocuous Cantaloupe became the carrier for Listeria, another little monster with deadly credentials, killing 13 people and affecting many people who were hospitalized. Imagine the fate of many people who had the misfortune to eat this fruit when it is known that the food poisoning manifestations from Listeria can appear several weeks after the consumption of the contaminated fruit. Though several theories float around regarding the reason for this fruit to get contaminated, no one seems to have a sure answer. It is admitted by Microbiologists familiar with the episode that finding out the reason may not be easy. Probably the contamination must have occurred due to improper washing process allowing the bacteria to migrate into the inside of the fruit. Fortunately due to recall of about 300,000 cases of the suspected fruit the damage was some what contained. The stark question that confront countries like the US is whether prevention of such episodes can be more effective than spending time and resources to chase the problem after such episodes are allowed to occur. 

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Food poisoning is reported to affect an estimated 48 million people in the U.S. each year, leading to 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths and such food-borne illnesses cost the nation's economy about $152 billion annually in health-care expenses and lost productivity. It is time to reinvent the meaning of food safety and new rules are necessary to ensure food does not become contaminated due to callous handling to limit illnesses. The last word on Cantaloupe tainting has not been heard because there may be thousands of households in the country holding the contaminated fruit in their refrigerators waiting to be consumed without the consumers unaware of the consequences awaiting them if and when they eat them. Mandatory rules, not guidelines, are needed to force the industry to adopt correct practices to prevent illnesses arising out of contamination of foods with a plethora of more and more virulent bacteria.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com