Food safety

FSSAI works to cut down on salt, sugar and saturated fat levels in mithais and namkeens

agronfoodFebruary 17, 2020

Feb 17, 2020

Indians have a good reason to rejoice as their own traditional namkeen and mithai is getting healthier. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is in intense talks with traditional namkeen and sweet-makers, to reformulate their products by cutting down on salt, sugar and saturated fat levels.

Manufacturers, which includes Haldiram, Bikanervala and Om Sweets. FSSAI is also looking to launch a brand or logo which will be displayed on the labels of products that have less sugar, salt, natural ingredients, pure khoya, paneer and milk with no added colours and zero transfat. This will create a common identity for such healthier traditional snack products.
The logo will have the FSSAI validation and will be backed by scientific analysis. The regulator can have a logo like ‘‘Same Taste Better Health: FSSAI Verified.’’

FSSAI will collaborate with industry players and work with the scientific community, research institutions and other government bodies to come up with recommendations of threshold limits for salt, sugar and saturated fat in various namkeens and mithais after assessing the current sugar levels. The food safety authority officials have held several meetings in this regard with the members of Federation of Sweets and Namkeen (FSNM).

Based on these threshold limits, the namkeen and mithai players will focus on using natural ingredients and pure milk-based ingredients and feasible alternatives will also be looked at so that the reduction in salt and sugar levels can be done without altering the taste of products.

According to the Federation of Sweets and Namkeen Manufacturers, there is a proposal for a joint effort of the industry with the FSSAI to give our Indian traditional sweets and namkeens a makeover, which are increasingly being perceived to be unhealthy compared to other snack formats. Once the threshold levels are set, the industry will work towards gradually reducing levels of salt, sugar and saturated fat in mithai and namkeens.