The Maggi issue and the questions it raises...

All of a sudden there is a big issue in India. The Maggi is in a soup.. A soup of troubles..There has been reports that it contains 17 times the permissible limits of Lead or it contains too much MSG or Ajinomoto as is commonly called. Various states have already banned the product, but interestingly for 15 days, 30 days etc. One fails to understand why only these many days ?

I was watching NDTV night show where Ms.Sunita Narain was pointing to certain deeper insights into the whole issue of food safety ..  She was pointing out that a packet of Maggi gives you almost 80% of your day's salt requirement.. And for any normal healthy child, at least three packets would be required to satisfy their "thirst" for maggi.. So we need to look deeper into the issue and it becomes clear that it is not the MSG or Lead alone which are the hidden dangers in junk food items like Maggi..

Maggi would be just one example of such innumerable brands which are sold in India through super markets and just one noodles brand. There are pastas, pizzas, ketchups, sauces of different colours and flavours, and a whole lost of processed foods charged with excess of preservatives and salts and acids etc. Are we also going to address all these items as well... Or is it just one storm in a tea cup which will subside when all the test results will become "normal" all of a sudden and those who tested the product initially will say, their testing equipment was faulty ?

We also need to ask ourselves another question. All those noodels which we buy from the road side - are they safe too?  Not at all... When you get time, please try to watch how they make the noodles, how they chop the vegetables and what all ingredients are added to the noodles .. One thing very common that I have noticed is that most of these road side shops, they buy the cabbage or onion and  other vegetables and slice them with out any washing at all.. The amount of ajinomoto they add to the noodles is too high even to beat the branded noodles like Maggi... If this is the case of noodles, the other stuff like the Chicken 65 or other gravy /curry is even more dangerous. They add too much red pigment to these to get a bright red colour and from the very packing of the colour one can be 100% assured that these are not safe, food grade colours (if there was anything called food grade colour at all in the first place)..

Unfortunately our food safety standards are so poor, the Food Inspectors are so corrupt, and the public are equally ignorant and unaware of what they eat and whether it is safe to eat etc...

So, in my opinion, such issues are good for the public and even though nothing much may turn out from this current controversy, public would be a bit more hesitant to buy the noodles from shops but they may still buy an egg noodles or a chicken noodles from fast food outlets which are springing up in every small towns and streets ...Hopefully, at least some parents will learn how to make their own pasta or noodles at home from whole grain wheat powder or at least try out our own Rice Noodles  or Ragi noodles ... to turn to better alternatives to the instant food culture..

Let us hope for the best...

Signing off...