SAFETY OF MSG IN FOODS-NEW FINDINGS AND THEIR IMPLICATION

In their mad rush to have the eyes, ears and minds of innocent consumers, food processing industry is known to practice the art of "dressing up" their products and score against each other. The fact that in doing so they are compromising the quality of life of their customers by using many chemical additives, some approved and others under the GRAS list, is not realized. Mono Sodium Glutamate, popularly known as MSG is one such chemical approved for use in many countries, though there are some restrictions in its use in some products. Why one needs flavor enhancers, if good quality raw materials are used in the food preparation is beyond any body's comprehension. New studies throw more light on the repercussions of MSG use, especially amongst children.

To day thousands of products churned out by the food industry in Europe, the US, Australia, Japan and other advanced countries contain MSG at varying concentrations. The products include snacks, soups, sauces, meats, flavored potato chips and a host of others. Soy sauce which is an integral part of foods in China, Japan and other oriental countries, contains glutamic acid and this has been cited as the basis to deflect any question regarding the safety of MSG by chemical process by the manufacturers. Industry is well aware that though glutamic may be present in free form in many natural foods, it is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, the MSG that has the property of enhancing flavor dramatically because it easily dissolves and ionizes in aqueous phase. The mere presence of glutamic acid in a complex form need not necessarily cause any harm and hence such a stand may not be tenable. What is not made clear is how far the commercially made MSG is pure and what artifacts are generated with any adverse consequences during the manufacturing process.

While adults may have the biological ability to deal with MSG ingested through foods, what bothers concerned scientists is its devastating consequences in children. Unfortunately there are no clear guidelines that bar use of MSG in foods targeted at children though responsible industry players do not use it in such products. While children of 3 years of age and below are not supposed to be taking any foods containing MSG, in practice what prevents them from consuming products flavored with MSG available freely in the market? Is it not a tragedy that knowing pretty well that MSG can be risky, no one is seriously concerned about its ubiquitous presence in practically every food that is consumed to day? Is it absolutely necessary to boost the natural flavor by adding MSG at the expense of human health? Why does a society like that in the US, already over burdened with over-weight and obese people need further incentive to eat in the form flavor enhanced products? These are questions the world has to face one day and it is better to tackle the matter to day rather than leaving it to posterity to suffer the consequences.

It is ironical that a country like the US with most liberal view on MSG use, suffers maximum health damage because of wide scale manufacture and consumption of nutritionally unbalanced and health-wise unsafe foods. Within 10 years of clearing the use of MSG in food in the US, hundreds of studies had emerged showing adverse changes in the body and much data has accumulated as published articles in many reputed medical journals. Several rat studies revealed irreversible destruction of the retina after MSG ingestion. Other studies showed glutamate to be a major excitatory neurotransmitter that causes the inflammation of the nerve or brain cell within 90 seconds of contact and within 3 hours the brain cells were found to be dead. A relatively recent study dramatically brought out that the dendrites of the brain cell and the hypothalamus were being damaged by MSG. Dendrites are the branched projections (like antennas) of the brain cell that conduct the relay of information from brain cell to brain cell. The hypothalamus is critical for both learning and memory and controls the onset of puberty, growth regulation, appetite and sleep cycles. It regulates the pituitary gland which regulates the entire endocrine system. Damage to the hypothalamus has been linked to endocrine disorders and obesity. What an impressive credential for this flavor booster!

Unless the world acts now to ignore industry inspired studies carried out by obliging scientists, proclaiming the safety of MSG and take effective action to ban MSG from all foods, it may have to regret later.

V.H.POTTY

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

"MILLING" TECHNOLOGY-CAUSE OF CHANGING FOOD HABITS

What one eats to day has no resemblance to what people from two generations ago ate and one of the most critical causative factors is the milling technology, an ubiquitous unit operation that has changed the whole world. In chemical engineering parlance, milling simply refers to a unit operation deployed for achieving size reduction but in food processing it has some what different connotation. The terminology like grinding, crushing or milling is used commonly to refer to processing of raw foods into edible ones, though many people have little idea about the subtle difference.

Grinding is a word having 10 different meanings as far as an English speaking person is concerned and these include crushing some thing to small pieces or powder, oppressing or treating extremely harsh, polishing of a surface, making sound by friction, coming to halt with a noise etc. As far as food processing is concerned it is common expression that denotes size reduction to bring a coarse food material, especially dry ones, into powder or flour with varying particle size. Grinders fitted with appropriate sieves can deliver flours with different particle size. In contrast crushing is a general terminology that is used widely for pressing, squeezing hard, to cause creases in the dress materials, to describe defeat and also to convey a sense of overwhelming, intending to subdue, infatuation and making beverages from fruits prepared by pulping.

The word "Milling" originated from the "Mill" that means a building fitted with machinery for grinding grain into flour or a machine that grinds a substance into powder. In course of time it became a common terminology to denote many operations in the organized sector for converting raw products into finish products. Paper mills, cotton mills, textile mills, steel mill etc have very little in common with a flour mill where flour is the end product. In food processing area milling is most commonly referred to a series of operations under dry or wet conditions, the ultimate aim being either dehusking, debranning, splitting or grinding into flour. Wet milling is the most common kitchen operation for preparing batter that is used to make hundreds of traditional preparations. No kitchen is considered complete unless a "mixie" is provided. Industrial milling like cocoa mass preparation, homogenization, ultra grinding, etc is part and parcel of food industry.

What influence milling has had on the health of modern consumers? Can this unit operation be blamed as the sole reason for drastic changes in the eating habits which have taken place during the last hundred years? To some extent, naturalist would say so. Milling is responsible for reducing the dietary fiber in almost all foods consumed to day. Milling removes bran and germs from wheat, bran from dehusked rice and husk from legumes while splitting and almost all processed foods to day are based on these three food grains. During milling and refining significant loss takes place vis-à-vitamins, minerals and many phytonutrients. By making super fine flours the natural role played by the jaws and the dental structure in masticating foods is by passed. Fine particle foods are digested faster creating sudden sugar peaks in the blood not considered desirable. Same applies to fruits also as eating a whole fruit has superior benefits compared to peeled, pulped, refined juices, consumed so commonly to day. The foundation of many of the modern foods is the finely ground flour from corn and other food grains and that many of these foods are responsible for to day's "bloated" society is an irrefutable fact.

Convenience taking precedence over nutrition, modern families may have no choice but to depend on processed foods which saves consider time and efforts leaving them free to do many other pressing daily chores. While search for exciting new foods with different texture, taste and flavor is bound to be part of human life, discretion in deploying milling technology more appropriately can make a difference between good and indifferent quality of life. Milling technology and machinery available to day are so versatile that sufficient flexibility is built into these gadgets to get a products of desired nutritional quality.

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

PEPSI TO GO THE COKE'S WAY? RUMBLINGS IN KERALA

It is still fresh in the memory of many about the violence marred closure of Coco Cola's bottling plant at Plachimada in Kerala, the "God's Own" country where "God" seems to be looking the other way when irrational and unjust decisions are taken that defy logic. This multi national beverage company, though not much liked by many, was invited to Kerala and welcomed there with a red carpet to establish its plant providing many incentives and allurement. It made sense that a state like Kerala, notorious for its aggressive labor force, needed respectability by attracting reputed industry like Coca Cola, providing some economic benefits for the local population. But the 2004 closure of the plant, within 4 years of its inauguration in 2000, under some pretext smacked of ideological consideration rather than any substantiative issue. It is another matter that the industry minister of the same state lamented recently that "Kerala is the only state that could not prevent closing of an industry", obviously for wrong reasons.

The controversy surrounding the establishment and closure of the Plachimada bottling plant refuses to die down and in March this year a so called "high power panel" consisting mostly of government bureaucrats put out a "damage" report against the company, recommending recovery of Rs 2162.8 million as compensation to the local population. Strangely some of the panels members were the same bureaucrats who were involved earlier in giving license for setting up the plant! While it may be difficult to come to any impartial conclusion regarding various charges leveled against the company, one thing seems to be certain that none of the charges can stand legal scrutiny and on the other hand any international legal assault by the company against Kerala government may even result in awarding compensation to it from the government! On the social front Coca Cola company could be faulted for not being sensitive to the unforeseen consequences of their drawing half a million liters of water every day from the under ground sources, though more than 65% of it was returned to the ground and for distributing the sludge as fertilizer material.

Kerala government must have been aware that beverage manufacturing is a water intensive operation and this should have been factored into the decision to grant license. The State Pollution Control Board with the necessary mandate should have fore seen the damage that could be caused by the plant waste for insisting on remedial measures before starting the operation. Even after identifying the water and waste disposal problems with the plant a compromise rather than a confrontation would have prevented the closure. Coca Cola company is an international giant with enormous resources and it could have been persuaded to develop the villages around the plant site by deployment of modern technologies for water harvesting and conservation and expanding agricultural activities. Incidentally Palghat district in Kerala had the most rain fall in the state and this might have been one of the considerations for locating the plant here. The accusation that the sludge contained heavy metal contaminants like Chromium, Cadmium, Lead etc is disturbing because beverage making does not involve use of any inputs even remotely connected to these metals. Taking a cue from this, government should have become alert to monitor the presence of these poisonous metals in the ground water which was being consumed by the villagers for ages. This does not seem to have bothered the authorities at all, with their focus only on 'closing" the plant at any cost.

Not wanting to learn a lesson from the past, the CM of the state in an aggressive posture categorically declared recently that another bottling plant belonging to PepsiCo in Pudussery, again in Palghat district, must also be closed because "locals" are against it! What type of a state is this which, after encouraging industry to come, turns against them on some pretext or the other? Is it really due to genuine reason or based on ideological considerations? It is doubtful if the state government would have taken such a stand if the plant was established with Russian or Chinese collaboration, reflecting its animosity to any thing associated with the US. The pretext that the local village council has filed a case against the bottling plant does not carry much weight because the present ruling regime in that Panchayat is controlled by the same political party that rules the state.

Contrast this with the interest generated by the just concluded "Global Investors Meet" (GIM), organized in Karnataka which attracted over 350 entrepreneurs with an investment potential of Rs 4000 billion and opportunity for employment for over 600.000 people. Though Karnataka cannot stand any where near Kerala in terms of literacy, skills and productivity, investors seem to be satisfied that they would get all the support from the government. Even God may not help "God's Own Country", if it cannot help itself by learning from other better performers.

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

MILK FROM COW OR SOYBEAN?-PICKING THE WINNER!

Milk, from which ever sources it comes, has been recognized as a food par excellence though those who are vegans probably may disagree with such a conclusion. But when it comes to man-made milk from agricultural ingredients, comparisons are invariably made with milk from cattle and it is unfair to expect that any man-made milk can replace "nature's own milk" in terms of nutrition and healthiness. It is unlikely that milk from cow or buffalo will ever be displaced in the diet of humans, especially children by soy milk or any other artificial milk like product. There are of course some advantages for soy milk because of the high nutrition content of the bean, especially in terms of phyto nutrients and unsaturated fatty acids.

Manufacturers of plant based milk preparations like soy milk have an economic stake in raising doubts about animal milk and the debate that is raging in Europe and the United States, between the advocates of animal milk and soy milk, can at best be termed as ridiculous. It is true that dramatic increase in soy milk consumption is happening in many countries during the last three years and the soy beverage market has been able to move from the confines of natural food stores into the supermarket chains. The double digit growth of soy milk industry in some countries can be the envy of others. The debate appears to be wandering into not so relevant issues like social justice, attitudes toward animals and the environment, the dangers of genetic engineering of soy, use of hormones for acceleration of milk production in cows etc.

"World Milk Day" is being celebrated all over the world and this occasion is used to stress on the importance of milk in human nutrition. Though a significant segment of the population in some countries, especially in the Orient prefer soy milk over animal milk and there are many who cannot consume the latter because of lactose intolerance. Deficiency of the enzyme Lactase causes such intolerance syndrome and soy milk is the only other alternative. Casein based synthetic milk is commercially produced for whitening tea and coffee beverages but casein is a component derived from animal milk.

Activists belonging to the "People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)", a world wide voluntary service organization striving to sensitize human beings about the importance of being considerate to animals have launched a counter campaign appealing people to desist from consuming animal milk. According to them milk is produced by a mother for its off springs and not for others to enjoy and nourish. This may sound outlandish to many sensible people but there is some substance in the arguments of PETA that humans are invariably "inhuman" to animals bordering on persecution. Probably industry dealing with animals for milk, egg or meat must revamp its current handling practices to accommodate and respect the views and sensibilities of animal lovers. The argument by PETA that milk is harmful to humans flies in the face of mountains of well documented scientific studies that milk is the most complete food humans can have. The health afflictions cited as reason for shunning milk are not because of milk per se but due to over indulgence and can happen with any food consumed by man.

Even if plant based milk like products are able to capture the market beyond the current 1% share, it is a question of time before consumers return to animal milk, just like the realization that mother's milk is the best for the infants. The milk production in India which crossed the 100 million ton mark recently offers a valuable lesson to the western countries in that decentralized production through millions of dairy cattle owners is the only answer to all the problems being faced by them as cited above. There is nothing like an integrated agricultural farm with a few milk yielding cattle, be it cows or buffaloes, reared under humane conditions with high personal care, with the dairy industry, whether cooperative or private, providing ready out let to the market for the fluid milk at remunerative prices.Surely a product like soy milk has no chance against such a formidable rival as the cattle milk in a country like India.

V.H.POTTY

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

"FLAVORING" OF CHILDREN'S FOODS-A PREMEDITATED "HOOKING" STRATEGY?

From time immemorial food had a single dimension and that was taste. If a food is good to taste it must be good for the body, so goes the old thinking, till the basic contours of human nutrition emerged during early part of last century. If industry, aiming to get as high returns as possible on their investments on food processing operations, tries to cater to the sensory "weakness" of human beings, it is a natural phenomenon. But to day with massive nutrition data available it becomes the primary responsibility of the manufacturers to ensure that their products do not cause any harm to the consuming public. Ignorance can be condoned at the first instance of a violation of this principle, but deliberately attracting consumers through rich tasting but nutritionally junk foods is nothing short of a crime deserving highest form of punishment possible.

Flavor is a composite term that signifies the cumulative effect of color, aroma, taste and texture. With many artificial and synthetic colorants banned during the last two decades, only a very few are left with that can be used and large scale shift from synthetic to natural colorants is perceptible to day amongst the processors. Of course natural colorants are costlier to use and have much less tintorial power than their synthetic counter parts. One of the earliest cases of banning synthetic colorants was in tomato ketchup and it is a tribute to the industry that suitable varieties with intense red color were developed soon. To day no manufacturer uses external color in ketchup. Though consumers do have a weakness for bright colored food products which are associated with quality, once the health risks involved are known they can be weaned away by sincere industry efforts. When it comes to children attraction to color generally develops after the age of 12-18 months and why industry wants to make products for them with bright color is not clear. Probably the mothers may be the target as they are the ones making buying decisions! But there must emerge a consensus that no artificial or natural external colors must be used in the manufacture of foods for children below the age of 3 years.

As for aroma, it is doubtful whether children can distinguish between various smell but aroma may become crucial if nutritionally good food smells bad for some reason. Here again there is the danger that some of the aromatic substances can be allergic to them unless proved otherwise. There is a theory that aromatic substances like vanilla or some of the essential oils can be helpful in making the food designed with balanced nutrition acceptable and relishing. Before arguing out such a rationale, one must remember how children were fed before the advent of externally added aroma notes and a disciplined parent should be able to feed their kids foods as natural as possible.

Coming to texture children will be able to chew only after the development of their molar teeth and until such time they have to be fed with mashed or strained foods with a few microns sized particles for them to swallow and chew. Texture probably will play a role after the age of 3 years and crisp products with quick yielding texture are enjoyed by them. If products like potato chips, extruded snacks, biscuits etc are popular with the kids it is because of the crunchy texture. Chocolate confectionery are much sought after not because of their texture but the high degree of sweetness experienced in the oral cavity.

Taste is the most critical sensory trait that can influences the response of a child to any food and it is here parents must exercise maximum precaution. It may be easier to feed a child if the food is sweetened but continuous feeding of sugar sweetened foods can be habit forming especially during early childhood. Same is true with salt and fat. Highly salted and fat-rich products, introduced during early childhood can have far reaching impact on the food habits of children when they grow up and therefore must be moderated. Taking a liberal stance vis-à-vis providing unbalanced foods for the sake of convenience of feeding problem children can end up in disaster with the children becoming right candidates for all the food induced health disorders seen to day.

It is a tragedy of epic proportion to see some of the manufacturers of toddler formula resorting to use of natural and artificial flavors targeted at children in the age group 12-36 months, Their logic seems to be that such flavor addition "enables" parents to make the food easily acceptable to their kids who get the required nutrition through such flavored foods. Dispassionate observers see in such attempts a clear strategy viz hooking the children to processed foods at very early stage in life and thus become their permanent clientele for the life time. Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG), once considered innocuous has been forbidden for use in children's foods because of its debilitating effect on brain development. No one is sure whether some of the processing aids like colors and flavoring agents incorporated in toddler's formula could have dangerous consequences in future as they grow.

If WHO is promoting breast feeding, even up to 2 years, assuring that the child can get most of its nutritional requirements from milk, where is the necessity for specially flavored infant and toddler's food for normal growth and development. It is time that a universal consensus is evolved not to meddle with foods that are targeted to children under the age of 3 years and necessary guidelines are evolved for the industry to make only natural and balanced foods keeping in view the nutritional needs of children of different ages.

V.H.POTTY

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

CHALLENGE OF THE "JACK"-MILES TO GO!

A recent report in some news papers regarding the "original" work done in a University on processing of Jack fruit, the "largest tree borne fruit on earth", can evoke only some amusement because the researchers there have "developed" a series of mouth watering products from this fruit. These include srikhand, kulfi, wine and jam. Considering that Jack fruit has a history of 6000 years behind it, one can only wonder why no one had thought about making these products so far, leaving the task to a bunch of students in a University. The fruit growing as large as 35 kg in weight is a veritable bundle of sweetness and highly aromatic flavor, bordering on repugnance, liked or hated, depending on the people who consume them. The three main varieties that grow widely in different parts of the world vary mainly in the texture of the fruit bulb, hard to soft and pulpy.

Being a fruit rich in sugar the deseeded fruit bulbs can be converted into more than two dozen products at home though commercially only canned bulbs are made in very limited quantities, that too for export markets. While unripe fruits are consumed as a vegetable and for frying into chips like products popular in Kerala, ripe fruits, mostly available during March-August every year, coinciding with monsoon rains, are consumed fresh without any processing. It is a common sight to see road side vendors offering dressed bulbs on push carts in many cities in the South. Traditionally the fruit bulbs, after cutting into small pieces, are used to make a variety of preparations at home. The fruit bar made from the ripe Jack by sun drying, mostly in southern part of Karnataka, is an established product with good shelf life, being liked by many with its typical texture and mild flavor. A new product made by vacuum frying of semi ripe bulbs has been introduced recently and has found wide acceptance in the market.

There is no known orchard cultivating this fruit under controlled growing conditions as very little data is available on favorable inputs that can ensure maximum productivity. As it takes about 30 years for the tree to mature, Jack fruit never offers itself as an alternative to any of the existing economic crops. It is a tree that requires once in a life time investment, that too one's time to plant it and rest is taken care of by nature. High investment on Jack fruit is fraught with uncertainties in terms of yield, perishability, demand and marketing. Organizing cooperatives is also difficult because of these reasons.

Two biggest challenges in harnessing the goodness of Jack fruit for commercial operation are lack of standardization of fruit quality and logistical problems in extracting the edible portion under large scale processing. As only 25% yield can be expected, the waste generated also will pose problems of disposal. Most critical constraint is the presence of gummy latex in the whole fruit which can pose tremendous challenge for food engineers to design an appropriate gadget for extracting the edible part for achieving viable production volume under factory conditions. In one way it is better if mechanical gadgets are not invented because that can be a strength in a country like India where human resources are supposed to be available in plenty. Successful cooperative models for beedi making or papad manufacture, can be replicated to collect, process and make marketable products from Jack fruit for which initiative has to come from horticulture departments of some of the Southern states where the fruit is available in abundance.

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

DEMOCRACY AT "WORK"-THE KARNATAKA STYLE!

Under a democratic system of governance, "people"are supposed to be the center of attention and what ever is done by those in power are supposed to be for the benefit of the same people whom they are representing. When government does not fulfill the aspirations of the people what option one can have, though the ballot box is supposed to punish those who forfeit their confidence. But this can only be a theoretical remedy as there is a great bon homie amongst various political parties when it comes to power sharing and exploitation of the citizens. If all politicians and every political party behave against the interest of the citizen, what relevance the democracy "mantra" has in this country?

With coalition "dharma" being blamed for non-performance by governments at the center as well as at the state levels, what hope the country has for future and what type of life the coming generation will have under such deteriorating situation? It is a tragedy that the so called "aam admi", a euphoric reference to common man has no where to go to vent out his frustration and seek solutions to the mounting day to day problems that cause continuous deterioration in quality of life. On paper one has many options to approach many layers of government departments, agencies, institutions, commissions, committees etc, manned by rigid bureaucracy which rarely work unless adequately "greased". The snail paced judiciary is no solace for redressal of any grievances. No wonder such a situation is creating violent groups like "Maoists" or Naxalites which attract many people who are denied the "fruits of progress" for one reason or the other. A substantial segment of population in the country believe that violence in places like AP, Chhatisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and Karnataka is a direct out come of neglect of poor people by the governments, local, state as well as the center. But violence, what ever be the reasons, cannot be condoned and is not known to solve any problem in this Universe.

Take the instance of Karnataka where massive floods in October 2009 in North Karnataka rendered thousands of families homeless. Though all the attention was focused on the area during the aftermath of the floods for a few days and sky high promises were made to rehabilitate the victims within a few months, nothing tangible seems to have happened at the ground level. Government and many private business conglomerates made tall promises to build new houses for rehabilitation. One of the local mining groups even announced spending Rs 500 crore to build 50000 houses "without help" from the government! According to recent reports the progress of construction in the 14 districts of North Karnataka is less than 1% in spite of a donor commitment for building 73000 houses! Ultimately it turns out that the reason for such tardy progress was government it self which could not provide land for locating the proposed houses! Imagine the mental condition of the families affected by the natural calamity being pushed to the corner by the unfulfilled promises which ended up as only as "boasts, lies and false promises".

In another instance of blatant exhibition of money power, the mining barons of North Karnataka continued to transport iron ore in thousands of trucks every day, over loaded to the extent of 100% of the laden capacity, through high ways to Mangalore port which is in a pitiable condition since last two years because the roads were designed for trucks with only 10 tons capacity. This is in spite of the ban promulgated by the district administration on such transportation to prevent collapse of the road system between Bangalore and Mangalore. Millions of commuters who use this vital link road can only curse the government for the hell they have to go through while plying on this so called high way. The lame excuse of the bureaucracy is that they are "understaffed" to check such gross violations happening under their very nose!

Other states are not far behind in their casual attitude and callousness to the citizens and one can cite hundreds of such unfulfilled promises which remain on paper. Scams and mismanagement of the affairs of the country are order of the day and there is very little hope that things will improve in the foreseeable future. In the food front the traders and middlemen seem to have a field day with food inflation, artificially created, touching 20% recently with no solution in sight. Farmers, the backbone of this agriculturally predominant country are being continuously squeezed between middle men, contractors, traders, processing industry and the retailers. No wonder the present ruling coalition rates Naxalites as the biggest threat to the security of the country because they know the ranks of those dissatisfied and frustrated are going to swell in the coming years due to the inability of the government to address their problems. Nothing short of a radical constitutional change that will end the uncertainties associated with the current political system, can usher in a new era of transparency, dedication, commitment and accountability. What India needs is not the moribund democracy as seen to day but a "meritocracy" which gives merit and competence the highest priority

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