20/08/2020 - Health

KEY POINTS

·         India has a high burden of food-borne disease, the double burden of malnutrition, and high levels of micronutrient deficiency, the latter equally prevalent amongst rich and poor. It is hence remarkable that an Indian programme, Eat Right Initiative, by FSSAI has been recognised among the top-ten for the Food System Vision Prize by the US-based Rockefeller Foundation.

·         Eat Right India, a pan-India movement, has driven initiatives and awareness on healthier diets. The vision was to provide safe and wholesome food, delivered through a judicious mix of regulatory changes, capacity building initiatives and availability of collaborative tools.

·         Eat Right India is based on three pillars—safe food, healthy diet and sustainable diet. It worked on the vision of ‘if it’s not safe, it’s not food’; ‘food should not only serve the palate, but is meant for body and mind’, and ‘food has to be good both for people and planet’. It is a collective effort to ensure universal access to safe food, healthy and sustainable diets.

·         Each of these pillars had five concrete actions. Safe Food focussed on personal & overall hygiene, hygienic & sanitary practices through the supply chain, combatting adulteration, reducing toxins & contaminants, and, finally, controlling food hazards in processing and manufacturing.

·         These helped improve the safety and quality of food, and inspired public trust in food available commonly or through the government programmes. It also encourages a strong culture of self-compliance with a view to promote ease of doing business. It also seeks to have certification of clean street food hubs, fruit and vegetable markets, hygiene rating of halwai shops, meat shops and safety of food served in religious places.

·         Eat Right India is perfectly poised to win everywhere. It is people, gender, region and status agnostic. It forges a collaboration between the agriculture, health, industry, and environment ministries over respective food-related mandates, building a ‘whole government’ approach.

·         It also builds on synergies of programmes like Ayushman Bharat, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Poshan Abhiyaan and Fit India to institutionalise preventive healthcare as a way of life. This approach underpins FSSAI’s role as an ‘enabler and reformer’, apart from being an ‘enforcer’—to build a positive, collaborative and inclusive environment, for unlocking the true potential of the food sector.

Pls review