No Warning Signs

In India, even today, citizens don’t have enough power as consumers. Information trickles down to us slowly and redressal is painfully sedated or entirely missing. Perpetrators of negligence, misinformation, malpractice, and misinformation get away with a lot. We are not a litigious country. How can we be? Given the existing burden on the judicial system and delayed road to justice, consumer cases are lower down the pecking order. Therefore, Indian consumers are not empowered yet, and that must change. A few days ago, an irate Supreme Court hauled up the food regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), for dragging its feet on front-of-pack (FoP) food labelling. The task has been work-in-progress for, hold your breath, eight years! So lackadaisical has been the approach taken by FSSAI that even the apex court had to finally intervene. The apex court said that it was “not satisfied” with FSSAI’s compliance affidavit and that their endeavour “has not yielded any positive or good result”. We do hear from several quarters about the lack of efficacy of the food regulator, but that’s a matter for another column.

To put things into perspective, know that every day, thousands of Indians consume packaged food without adequate information on levels of sugar, salt, fat, and so on. We are willingly slow-poisoning ourselves and while a few discerning folk would check the back of the pack for the ingredients and nutrition list, the majority lives in delusions of what is and isn’t “healthy” food. The packaging of food products is very different overseas. The ‘nutri-score’ adorns the top of the packets in countries such as France and Belgium with ‘A’ being the healthiest, leading right through to ‘E’ being the least. Similar practices are followed in Spain, Germany, Portugal, Israel, Chile, and Brazil. Sadly in India, we are still waiting for almost a decade for the food regulator to complete “consultations” on its implementation.

The regulator seems tone deaf to even exhortations coming from the topmost leader of the nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly pointed out the “silent crisis” of obesity in India highlighting a possibility of 44 crore obese Indians by 2050 if lifestyles are not amended posthaste. He has urged households to reduce cooking oil usage by 10 per cent, he has lauded the ‘Sugar Board Movement’ in CBSE schools of displaying sugar content in various snacks and drinks, and cautioned against childhood obesity. The government’s Fit India Movement is a clarion call for citizens to pay attention to health and guard against lifestyle disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, and so on.

Therefore, this glacial pace of non-progress shown by FSSAI is antithetical to a fast-moving nation like ours and instead reeks of wilful negligence. This in itself is also bizarre, given that the entire premise of the Eat Right India movement is to nudge people to reduce salt, sugar, and oil intake. The double speak can be rectified with decisive action finally being taken by the food regulator. And while packaged food companies and their lobbies are expected to push back, if the regulator and the government finally shows teeth, all will have to fall in line.

Meanwhile, the top Indian court wants warning labels to be prominently displayed. Following this diktat would ensure that the schizophrenic approach of speaking about public health and following up with real action, is finally resolved. Will front-of-pack labelling stop consumption of junk food? Probably not. But at least these will be informed decisions taken by enlightened consumers.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is an author and media entrepreneur