Chandigarh among the top 11 Eat Smart Cities in country

From poshan vans to reach out to the underprivileged, kits for to test their everyday food for adulteration, creating eat right campuses, schools, clean street food hubs, fruit and vegetable markets, successful implementation of the Repurpose Used Cooking Oil effort, the Health Department, Chandigarh, is following FSSAI initiatives to ensure food safety.

The Eat Smart Cities challenge was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in April, 2021 in collaboration with the FSSAI to scale up the Eat Right India approach to city level. The primary objective is to steer smart cities to develop plans to support a healthy, safe, and sustainable food environment to manage food-related issues. As many as 36 cities submitted their scorecards.

“We are very proud that Chandigarh is among the eleven winning cities. We want to focus on proper nutrition for all. The focus should not be only on malnutrition, but also obesity. We need to monitor our children in schools, and colleges, for a healthy future. Twenty-five years back, infectious diseases were prevalent and caused a high rate of mortality. Today, Non-Communicable Diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are affecting even the younger generation. Our mobile vans help people test common food items like haldi, chilli, milk and we are also conducting several workshops to teach people how to cook healthy and use millets in their everyday diet,” said Dr Suman Singh, Director Health Services. She said that that Chandigarh will involve industry stakeholders to launch campaigns that will focus on healthy and safe food awareness.

Sukhwinder Singh, Designated officer-cum-Licensing Authority, Food Safety, UT Chandigarh, said in the last year, the city has been able to achieve several goals, the most significant being under the initiative ‘Repurpose Used Cooking Oil’ (RUCO), connecting 80 restaurants, food vending units, messes and canteens to bio-diesel units/companies. This initiative strives to initiate the process of disposal and collection of used cooking oil and convert this oil into bio-diesel. “We are running several campaigns to educate people in the business not to use old oil. By reaching out to several units and through constant awareness drives, we have been able to get more than 3 bio-diesel companies on board. The process is simple, the old oil is collected in drums and once a 50-liter drum is filled, the bio-diesel company takes the oil to its unit. Our next project will focus on street vending units, motivating them to not use the oil after two times, explains Singh, who is also focusing on hygiene ratings, kitchen inspections, and quality of ingredients used in restaurant kitchens,” he said

Dr Sonia Gandhi, Head, Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, Fortis Mohali, said oils darken with use and burnt food articles subject to high prolonged heat release harmful chemicals called acrolein. “Reused oils’ viscosity and molecular structure get changed and gradually become rancid. These oils create harmful toxins which cause lots of health problems,” she said.

Recently, the Model Jail, Government Post Graduate College for Girls, Sector 11, Chandigarh, Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Dr Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management were given the certificate of Eat Right Campus. The Clean Food Hub certification was given to the inner market of Sector 8, and now the focus is on Eat Right Schools, anganwadi centres, training of street food vendors, and clean fruit and vegetable market. According to Singh, an awareness generation team has been constituted to visit various institutions for the implementation of the initiatives, with the inputs of the public incorporated on issues related to food safety and nutrition.