Cuttack: A variety of colourful sweets bedeck the rack of sweet stalls this Puja season as well. But before eating sweets, be sure that they don’t contain any harmful chemicals that most of the confectioners use to make the sweets attractive.
Those who are having these sweets prepared from milk, paneer and khua are unknowingly taking some amount of slow poison also. The regular consumption of such foods would make them vulnerable to throat, kidney and stomach-related diseases, a report said.
On the condition of anonymity, a staff of a Cuttack-based confectionary shop said, “We are using some synthetic edible food colour to make the sweets more attractive. As it is illegal, most of these colour packets do not contain the name and addresses of the manufacturers. But some chemicals are used in colour manufacturing.
Similarly, a type of food essence is used to increase the self life of sweets. The food essences are being manufactured from some chemicals like Ethanol, he said.
Though food essence and synthetic food colour are available in Cuttack market, it is not yet known who is distributing them.
Despite repeated complaints about the use of harmful colours and chemicals in sweets, the concerned department is yet to take any action. During Dusshera and Bali Yatra, raids are generally conducted to check the sale of stale foods. But, no raids have so far been conducted to find out whether the sweets contain harmful chemicals.
When contacted, food squad inspector at Cuttack Municipality Corporation Prabhakar Pradhan said, “A few days ago we conducted raids at a sweet stall in OMP area following allegations of harmful chemicals in sweets and a huge quantity of ‘jeelapis’ were destroyed.”
If a person regularly uses harmful chemicals, he is sure to suffer from various throat and kidney-related diseases.
Dr Jayant Panda, medicine department, SCB Medical College and Hospital here, said, “The continuous intake of these chemicals does have a chemical effect on our bodies. Possibility of throat, kidney and stomach related diseases are high. Similarly Ethanol badly acts on our digestive system and kidneys.”
PNN