The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : These mouth-watering sweets may not be all that safe

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Saturday, Oct 21, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

These mouth-watering sweets may not be all that safe

Afshan Yasmeen

Many outlets have thrown basic hygiene in their kitchens to the wind

WIDE VARIETY: A view of the kitchen of a store where Deepavali sweets are being prepared. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: This Deepavali when you go out to buy sweets, think twice. The beautifully decorated and packaged sweetmeats may not be all that safe. Your mouth-watering "rasmalai" or "kaju katli" has probably come out of a kitchen that would have been a food inspector's nightmare, if indeed it had been inspected.

Several of the sweet outlets in the city, which have invested substantially in packaging and designing the end product, have thrown basic hygiene in their kitchens and manufacturing units to the wind.

When The Hindu team visited the kitchen of a popular sweet stall on Commercial Street, it found a thick layer of dirt and grime on the tables on which sweets are cut and shaped.

The floor was not cleaned and workers were jumping barefoot over the trays spread with the cooked "khova" and sugar.

This is not all. The workers had neither covered their heads nor worn gloves. Tired after mixing the raw materials and cooking them in the huge "kadais" (frying pans), their bodies oozed sweat as they puffed and panted over their work.

Mayor Mumtaz Begum, who recently inspected the manufacturing unit of another popular chain of sweet stalls, found similar unhygienic conditions there.

"I was surprised to see the dirty floor and kitchen platform of this unit on Veerapillai Street. They sell the sweets at Rs. 500 a kg, but do not bother to keep the kitchen clean," she told The Hindu on Friday. The Mayor also pointed out that she had learnt that the milk and sugar used to make the sweets were of inferior quality.

"Even the water that was used to knead the flour in the kitchen I visited was drawn from an open well with its walls covered with moss," she said.

Following her inspection, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) jurisdictional health officials seized the materials from the shop and closed the unit till the kitchen was cleaned thoroughly.

Drives

Officials from the BMP's Health Department regularly conduct inspections of hotels, restaurants, roadside eateries and other establishments where food is cooked. But they have not made any inspection of sweet stalls so far.

BMP Chief Health Officer M. Vijaylakshmi said several drives had been conducted to check the cleanliness in kitchens of eateries. "But we have not done this specifically for sweet stalls because eateries also include sweet stalls. During the inspection if unhygienic conditions are found in the kitchens, our medical officials and food inspectors seize the materials and seal the establishments. This is an ongoing drive," she said. However, Health and Family Welfare Minister R. Ashok has a different view. "Most of the sweet stalls are run by members of the Marwari community and they usually keep their kitchens clean," he told The Hindu.

Customers who throng the hundreds of sweet outlets are blissfully unaware of what lies behind those tempting delicacies, and owners are cashing in on this.

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