Need to frame universal food safety standards: Mandaviya

New Delhi Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday said there is a need to frame universal food safety standards as well as country-specific standards after detailed discussions at global level to tackle the challenges of food contamination, lifestyle diseases and imbalance in nutrition intake.

The minister was speaking after inaugurating Global Food Regulators Summit 2023 being organised in the national capital for the first time as a G20 event by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). The two-day summit serves as a platform for food regulators from over 40 countries to collaborate and work together. Addressing the event, Mandaviya underscored that there is a need for a global platform for detailed discussions and deliberations on food safety, similar on the lines of World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO. He said an annual meet to discuss standards by United Nations' food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, is not enough.

"The way habitual disease is growing, the way we are finding contamination in food and the way imbalanced nutrients are becoming part of our food, there is a need for universal discussion," Mandaviya asserted. Based on universal discussion, he said each country can prepare its own strategy, syllabus and standards. "Therefore, there is a need for two types of standards, one universal standard and other country-wise standard," the minister said. Mandaviya asked global food regulators to take into account climate, human health, animal health and plant health while framing standards. Noting that subjects of health and food are interlinked, he said the intake of safe and nutritious food is essential for better health. The health minister highlighted the measures taken by the Modi-led government to combat Covid-19 pandemic and how India helped other countries through supply of medicines and vaccines. "Health has never been a commerce for India. For India, health is service," he said.