In an attempt to keep children away from junk and unhealthy food, the Maharashtra government on Monday imposed a ban on the sale of `High in Fat, Salt and Sugar’ (HFSS) food at school canteens across the state. According to a Government Resolution (GR), 12 categories of food items will not be sold in school canteens. These categories include– potato chips, noodles, pizza, burger, cakes, biscuits, buns, pastries, etc. Additionally, the resolution also comes with a list of things that can be sold which include — roti, vegetable pulao, idli-vada, coconut water and jaljira.
A Task Force under the chairmanship of Director, National Nutrition Institute, Hyderabad has been set up in order to ban the sale of junk food which has very little nutritional content leads to diseases such as obesity, dental diseases, and diabetes and heart ailments in later life.
Following the advice of the Task Force, Maharashtra government decided to impose a ban on junk food in school canteens, the GR said. The GR also aimed at creating awareness among children about consuming nutritional food.
Notably, the banned food categories covers fried food items like potato chips, sherbets, ice gola, carbonated soft drinks, non-carbonated soft drinks, rasgullas, gulab-jamuns, pedha, kalakand, noodles, pizza, burger, tikka, pani-puri, all kinds of toffees, chocolates and candies, jalebis, imartis, all kinds of sweets, cakes, biscuits, buns, pastries, jams and jellies.
Also, food items which are allowed to be sold are rotis made of wheat, parathas, multi-grain rotis, rice, vegetable pulavs, rice with cereals and pulses, rice and black gram, halva made out of wheat with channa, sweet daliya, rice with rajma, idli-vada sambar, kheer, firni, milk and milk products like curd, lassi and buttermilk, vegetable sandwich, vegetable khichdi, coconut water, shikanji and jaljira.
