Consumer Voice :: Diwali Greetings

Gifting sweets and food items

Divali time sees a steep increase in sales of mithais and packaged food items. While the milk supply of India does not increase much, the production of khoya and cheese certainly sees a phenomenal rise. Mithais are still a largely unregulated sector in India, especially in terms of labelling. The colours used, the sweeteners put in, and the quality of the milk products that make the basic raw ingredients of the mithai, are something that there is very little information about. The following information about Synthetic Khoya has come to us from one of our member Mr. Subhash C. Agrawal.

SYNTHETIC KHOYA

With tremendous multi-times increase in demand of Khoya in festive-season of Deepawali, sale of harmful synthetic Khoya is at large in Delhi and other parts of the country. Union and state governments with many milk-processing units like ‘Mother Dairy', ‘Amul' etc in public and co-operative sector in different states, should arrange manufacture and sale of pure Khoya as packaged commodity to ensure sufficient supply of certified pure Khoya by recognised milk-processing units to save consumers from use of preparations made from synthetic Khoya . Mother Dairy in Delhi should also include milk-cream and Paneer apart from Khoya in its product-range. Packaged milk-items should also include cow-milk which is used as medicinal and traditional food for many persons.

Government-policy should be to sell milk and all milk-products as packaged commodity in urban areas to ensure their availability in pure form, and also to overcome problems faced by consumers on removing milk-dairies, cow and buffaloes out of city area because of environmental reasons.

LOOK OUT FOR OUR TEST OF THE MOST FAVOURED INDIAN MITHAI -'BURFI' COMING UP REAL SOON!

Make it a point to ask your mithaiwala about the quality of the food product and colour used. Consumer pressure can yield important information.

Also look out for proper weight of the product you are purchasing. In the rush and crush of the Divali spirit , traders and consumers tend to overlook details which yiels best value for maoney. Don't let your mithaiwala get away with charging for the cardboard box instead of the mithai.

When buying packaged nuts etc. Look out for the packaging dates because most traders tend to pass off last year's produce in attractive packages and the consumer not only ends up paying for old stuff but also for the overrarated, but mostly useless packaging.

With packaged food items too, it is important to carefully read the date of packaging and expiry, as also the list of ingredients.

Comforting your pet

The noise of crackers severely distresses dogs, cats, and birds, among other animals. If you have a pet, make sure you put him/her away in a corner of your house that is least noisy. Pets will often hide themselves away under beds and sofas to escape the noise.

Do not burst crackers near trees that would are roosting areas for birds.

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