More must comply with lead & tin levels

Indian food regulator is getting ready to clamp on anything from fruits to mushroom, wine to canned fruit cocktail, jam and jellies to table olives, natural mineral water to meat and poultry, if metal contaminant exceeds the prescribed value. In a draft notification on the Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Amendment Regulations 2015, FSSAI has added a long list of food and beverages that should comply with levels of lead, tin, cadmium, arsenic, chromium and mercury. The draft on contaminants regulation has been put up on its website for comments after which the new norms will be notified. In the existing regulations, the list of products for metal contamination is limited to beverages without elaborating on what they may constitute. Infant milk, edible oils, ice cream, canned fish, cocoa powder, tea, vinegar and sugar syrup are among the products covered in the current list. The regulator also has plans to come out with standards for alcoholic beverages including beer, whisky, vodka, gin and breezer.