The Commissioner of Food Safety has issued orders that
all hotels, restaurants, bakeries, and other eateries which use
monosodium glutamate (MSG or ajinomotto) in food items should display
this information clearly on their premises.
“In the
case of packaged foods, food manufacturers are expected to give clear
label information that the food item contains MSG, with the warning that
it should not be consumed by children below 12 months of age. We are
insisting that the hotel industry should comply with the same regulation
by declaring that food items contain MSG,” senior Food Safety officials
said on Monday.
The orders issued by Commissioner of
Food Safety T.V. Anupama said that all eateries should display a public
notice which declared that “this establishment uses MSG as a flavouring
agent in the following food items. These food items should not be given
to children below 12 months of age.”
Food Safety officials said they wanted all hotels and eateries to comply with this regulation.
“We
decided to bring in this regulation as MSG is being used
indiscriminately by many eateries. In one of our recent inspections, in
one eatery we found that table pepper was mixed with MSG,” an official
said.
MSG is a naturally occurring chemical
glutamate, which though has no flavour of its own, enhances other
flavours and imparts added taste to the food and is a widely used as
food additive.
No limit for ‘added MSG’
State
Food Safety officials said that as far as the food additive MSG was
concerned, the food regulatory authorities in the country had not fixed
any limit for “added MSG.”
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