State’s food laboratory gets an upgrade

Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 14 (EMN): Moving closer to eating healthy and eating safe, the Nagaland state public health laboratory was upgraded to a level-2 food laboratory, on Tuesday, with installation of three food testing equipments, on May 14 in Kohima.

The three new devices are a liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (GCMS), gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GCMS), and an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS).

The commissioner for Food Safety of the Health and Family Welfare department I Himato Zhimomi inaugurated the laboratory. He said that the state was ‘fortunate’ to have a laboratory that has been installed with “latest” machines which in turn would give accurate results.

Food business operators are urged to come forward and test their products before selling in the market. Saying there is a heavy penalty for food adulteration, he asked food operators to comply with food safety rules.

Despite “huge shortage” of food safety officers, food analyst, and laboratory technicians, the state food laboratory was successfully installed, he said. He encouraged officers to educate the public about the importance of the laboratory.

The additional commissioner for Food Safety, Dr. Vikeyie Losu said the department is ‘slowly progressing.’ The installation of new devices should be celebrated as Nagaland is the first among north-eastern region states to be introducing them with the laboratory having been upgraded to a level-2 laboratory.

‘We have reached the status of unique in its way and we should be proud of it,’ he said. ‘It is important to eat right, eat healthy, and eat safe which is also the right to living.’

Losu congratulated the Food Safety officers and staffs for their efforts in ‘bringing a change.’ The official added that the recent case of formalin-laced fish being sold in the market should be a lesson for everyone.

Fish treated with formalin which used to be sold in the market should be a lesson for the citizens to check the ‘menace,’ he said. The official called upon the department to be vigilant of adulterated food.

Khrükutolü Veswuh, a food analyst at the state public health laboratory of the department, gave an overview of the food laboratory’s work. She said that the laboratory was selected to have “high-end” equipments by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

The selection was made after a close study and inspection, it was informed. It was purely funded by the FSSAI, with total cost of INR 10 crore, Veswuh said.

The FSSAI is a central food authority and an autonomous establishment under the ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

For complaints about food adulteration or adulterated food, citizens may write to a designated officer of the chief minister’s office.

Consumers can also bring food for testing in case of suspicion of adulteration. Testing fees will be refunded once the food item is found adulterated, she said.

On the issue of shortage of staff and experts, Veswuh said, “They (staffs) are efficient enough to handle it.” She added that more publicity on food safety needs to be given to the public. She clarified that it takes time to bring out the results for food items tested for adulteration. The reason she gave was that the process involves a lot of study, analysis, testing and research.

The fee for food testing is ‘prescribed’ as it depends on food items. Normally, it will take around INR 6,000 to INR 7,000 according to food parameters.

A retired principal director, Dr. Sashimeren Aier, who also attended the function, gave a brief history of the department. Programme officer for Food Safety Dr Akuo Sorhie thanked her staff for their work.

The food testing instruments
The testing equipments can analyse and test the purity of a wide range of food components such as cereals, oils, food products, beverages, spices, sweets, vegetables, additives, etc., including organic, inorganic part of the food contents such as vitamins, proteins, peptides, amino acid hormones, food colours, metals etc.

The mass spectrophotometer, for instance, can distinguish food flavouring enhancers from natural origin or synthetic chemicals, natural or artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers or stabilizers.

It can also identify natural or added synthetic food colours and quantify them. It plays a significant role in identification and determination of molecular mass of heavy metal compounds (lead, arsenic, mercury etc.) which may get into food or water bodies from the environment (water, soil, air etc.)

Further, it can test water quality or potential food contamination from its source of origin like environmental factors.

It is a powerful tool for characterisation of various bio-molecules including proteins, nuclei and carbohydrates, and thus It can analyse the nutritional composition or contents of food samples.

It can also detect or identify pesticides in food bodies and quantify the impurity.

The instruments are reported to have high sensitivity, high mass accuracy, and faster analysis, high resolution and structural information on mass level.