Sale of junk foods near schools could soon be a thing of the past

With an eye on the health of school going children, the food safety regulator FSSAI is contemplating restrictions on the sale of junk food items in and around schools. The junk food would include noodles, chips, carbonated drinks and confectionery items.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 18 October 2015.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has worked out some draft guidelines on availability of wholesome and nutritious food in schools to counter the desire of junk food consumption pattern among children.
FSSAI has said that schools should not be taken as a place to promote foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS foods). The eating outlets in the schools should not be treated as commercial outlets and schools should develop a canteen policy for providing nutritious, wholesome and healthy foods.
Schools should ensure that the sale of widely promoted and advertised junk food is restricted in schools and nearby areas of 50 meters.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Eggs are our lifeline – egg rolls difficult to resist

Any discussion on eggs is bound to turn controversial because there are two distinct schools of thought – one is that the yellow of the egg is not good for the heart because of its cholesterol, another encourages people to embrace the egg as a good nutrient. A jingle goes – Sunday ho ya Monday, ao khayev andey (whether it is Sunday or Monday, come let us eat eggs).
A report has indicated that one large egg contains approximately 187 milligrams of cholesterol. The report goes on to add that in spite of their fat and cholesterol content, egg yolks are a good source of vitamin A and iron, along with a host of other nutrients.
The yolk of eggs added to your cholesterol levels because they contained substances that dissolve readily in blood to give rise to blocked arteries in the heart – that is not good news. Hence eggs should be removed from the menu and need to be avoided like poison.
Obviously, consumers became cautious. How nice would it have been if someone would come up with a variety of yolkless eggs as we have ‘sugarless’ sweetener tablets for the diabetics! That has not happened till now.
Anyway, it cannot be denied that eggs are our lifeline. We grew up on eggs. In our nursery days we learnt all about Humpty and Dumpty who sat on a wall, fell down, and made a mess of their lives. The army was called in by the King but the poor creatures could not be reassembled.
As we stepped into our youth, we discovered that eggs are a sort of symbol of bachelorhood – different methods of preparation of eggs added to the repertoire of the bachelors’ cuisine capabilities. From simple boiled eggs, to half boiled ones, followed by the omelettes and scrambled eggs, the bachelors had to master the arts or go hungry. There was a time when there were no pizza outlets around that guaranteed delivery within half-n-hour – else it came to you free. In those days, the concept of two minute noodles had not yet taken off. Those noodles you just boiled in water and consumed as you took in the day’s news before making a bee line for the bus or tram or train or whatever to take you to your place of work.
It has to be admitted that we love eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The delicious Moghlai parathas of Anadi cabin in Kolkata and the innumerable clones of eggs right from egg rolls to biryani are unimaginable without eggs. The egg rolls, wrapped and delivered to you on a platter are difficult to resist, come what may.
Incidentally, egg rolls have provided thousands of the youth of Kolkata with a means of earning a reasonably good livelihood by setting up stalls at street corners – these entrepreneurs prepare and supply on-the-spot egg rolls to meet the thousands of hungry mouths.

Fast food culture of India: the East-West divide

India is a land of diverse cultures and equally diverse eating habits, hence it is but natural that the same is reflected in the fast food culture – while there is a predominant North-South divide, there is also an East-West one.
When one broaches the subject of fast food, one normally visualizes pizzas, hamburgers and coke because fast food is supposed to be a Western concept, an indication of a fast lifestyle. But, it would be of interest to know that fast foods were known to Bengalis as far back as the fifties – there used to be a tele-bhaja shop near Beadon Street where one had to stand in queue to wait his turn of the deliciously hot, crisp tele-bhaja made of thin slices of brinjal or potatoes dipped in a batter of besan.
The people in the queue would be from six to sixty years of age, men and women alike. It was rumored that the oil used to fry these delicacies was never changed – when the level became low, some more oil was just added to top up the level! The special taste of these tele-bhajas was attributable to this singular factor – that is what people say!! This is not to belittle the moghlai parathas and kaviraji cutlets which used to hold center stage in the times when people still patronized the cinemas.
Then there are the singaras and the jilipis specific to the Bengalis.
In other parts of the country, singaras are better known as samosas and jilipis as jilebis. The only difference is that in the Bengali culture, both these items are normally found in the breakfast menu and are seldom prepared after nine in the morning! The reason is not very far to discover – the fast food menu of Bengalis revolve around the umpteen plus one roadside stalls set up at nearly every street corner. A very practical method of tackling mass scale unemployment, each stall owner manages to break even and earn a reasonable amount of profit.
Nowadays, they have entered the roll market – it allows money to roll freely. There are various types of rolls like egg roll, chicken roll, mutton roll along with Chinese dishes like noodles and chili chicken. Variety is the spice of life, so the saying goes, and the Bengalis have mastered the art of serving innumerable types of fast foods. With hundreds and thousands of hungry mouths to feed, they seldom face a shortage of customers. Irrespective of whether it is a sultry summer evening or a wet monsoonish one, fast food is always in demand. The ingredients used in all such preparations, when mixed in the correct proportion and fried, emit such an out-of-the-world aroma that you would literally stop in your tracks to taste the final product. Our TV chefs would give millions to learn these secrets!!
In the Western part of India, to the Mumbai crowd, fast foods mean bhel-puri at the Juhu sea beach or pav-bhaji or misal-pau or wada-pau or sabudana wada – pau is a common factor. This pau is a form of bread – shaped like a bun, it is not sweet and is an integral part of these fast foods. And - there is no dearth of customers. One needs to remember that chilies are an important ingredient.