Comfort food – Stewing discomfort

Samarjit Kambam *

Food safety officers collecting samples from a shop in Imphal on June 3 2015 :: Pix - Hueiyen Lanpao

In this fast paced world almost everybody relies on instant food. When we say instant food it is usually understood as processed food which can be straightway gulped down the belly or after heating for a short duration of time. Instant foods are illusorily gaining momentum as safe, wholesome and nutritious and our dependency on them is increasing exponentially which may be considered as a tectonic shift in the eating habits compared to our ancestors.

The user-friendly, handy and time saving convenience features of processed food have catapulted it as one of the hot favourite of people irrespective of age. Further, aggressive marketing has gradually brainwashed us and changed our outlooks towards processed food with the same leading to increasing usurp of gastronomic space in the country and more particularly in our state of Manipur.

Hectic schedule and 'race against time' work culture has inclined us more and more towards them. In fact, processed food has become the answer to today's busy lives. One disturbing trend, however, is the way people consume them as though they are staple food, an eating habit which health experts fear could lead to a host of health hazards.

In olden times, processed food such as packed or tinned meat, fish and vegetable were made with the sole purpose of giving instant relief from the harsh pangs of hunger which were used by soldiers on war or those in the line of duty stationed on harsh terrains and tumultuous situations thereby giving them comfort from an empty belly whilst on their harsh duty.

Soon, it found its way for use during emergent situations such as economic crises due to aftermath of flood, earthquake, devastating windstorm and a host of other natural or man-made calamities. However, instant food is evolving rapidly fissioning to various progenies in terms of variety and flavour and has forayed its way in every household throughout the world.

Nutritionists have claimed that processed foods are not as nutritive as is believed. In fact, most of them have been found to have zero nutrients and zero fibre other than calories and taste enhancers. So they are usually conferred with the title of 'Junk food' due to the absence of nutritive value. The pre-conceived notion of processed food as wholesome and nutritive has paved the path for many health complications.

Processed foods are found to be the main source for obesity, heart disease, diabetes and constipation. According to "Food reward hypothesis of obesity", our appetite gravitates towards food that are sweet, salty and fatty as they are desirable and rewarding to the brain by artificially stimulating Dopamine, a pleasure neurotransmitter.

In line with the hypothesis, processed foods have been engineered to be incredibly rewarding to the brain wherein the reward value of processed food affect our thoughts and behavior by bypassing the innate control mechanism making us to eat much more than we need, so much so that it starts to compromise our health leading to obesity. Due to intense competition, processed food are made to taste as desirable as possible and food that are engineered to be hyper rewarding effectively short circuits our body's innate brakes against overconsumption thereby leading to food addiction.

The World Health Organisation has announced that additives in processed foods like high fructose corn syrup, sugar and Monosodium Glutanomate(MSG) have been linked to weight gain and obesity over and above containing traces of lead and huge quantity of sodium compounds. Lead has been detected in a wide range of packaged and canned food, beaverages and even bottled water. It is an element which poses great risk to health. Excess of lead or lead poisoning in the body has been shown to culminate adverse health effects and detrimental to the neurological development of children.

The aftermath of the recent Maggi food scare in the country where many states of India had to shove their hatchets to Nestle, the Swiss food giant to recall their packaged food products for violating food safety norms in Maggi noodles should serve more as an eye-opener that processed foods are not what we always viewed as safe and healthy.

The presence of more than the permissible amount of lead and huge dosage of MSG in various varieties of comfort food Maggi noodles are reasons galore to make one quite discomforting. The presence of worm in Nestle's Cerelac, an instant food for babies which was reported in Tamil Nadu some days back further adds to the grieve of this Swiss multinational. Of late some disturbing trends in comfort foods are coming up like a Domino's Effect.

With Maggi ringing the distress bell, reports of presence of insects inside Glucon-D an instant energy powder manufactured by the American pharmaceutical giant J Heinz Company cropped up in Uttar Pradesh followed by another unpalatable report jumping into the bandwagon. This time at close proximity, at Ziribam of Manipur.

This recent unwanted trend shows that there is high possibility of compromised safety norms in the innumerable packaged foods. Swiss giant Nestle has for decades attained cult status as the world renowned instant food manufacturing company. It has many popular products under its tag such as Nescafe malted coffee, Good Day cookies, Everyday skimmed milk etc.

When a world renowned brand such as Nestle governed by stringent Swiss safety rules can come up with compromised products, it won't come as any surprise when the flooding shabby Indian products in the food processing sector come up with sub-standard or safety-compromised products.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India(FSSAI) needs to monitor and regulate safety norms at a whole new level and become a game changer by stringent testing and checking packaged food products incessantly on short term periodic basis not only when a few brands draw a red line. Over and above advocating strict protocols for safety, the government of India needs to create awareness that instant food were never the healthy dietary option in the first place.

Parents and elders also need to discourage their kids from consuming instant food as a staple diet. Whatever, the relevant authorities should ensure that all levels of security for food safety is adhered to by the manufacturers for safety and health should always come first to the people.