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Health Focussed Convenience Food: Today’s Genuine Need
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Saturday, 17 August, 2019, 15 : 00 PM [IST]
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Shital Nagre
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The demand for ready-to-eat food has been increasing over the last few years. Large number of people are migrating from one place to another for study and employment purpose. The number of working women are increasing. In the busy schedule its hectic to plan and buy things to prepare food. Therefore, need for convenience food is better option for consumers.
In ancient days, there were joint families and housewives who used to prepare home-made healthy snacks like namkin-mattharies, chakali, shev, laddus and chivada. But today, joint families are turned to nuclear families and women are working and they are busy handling their daily challenges to feed their families. The need is to start from baby food and daily breakfast, snacks, whole meal and so on.
Identifying this need, manufacturing companies took lead to make available ready-to-eat food and grab the market. Earlier, grocery stores were selling ingredients for preparing meals, but because of increasing demand for convenience food they are also making available completely ready-to-eat food.
Nutritional content
Convenience food is a food that is commercially prepared (often through processing) to optimise ease of consumption. Such food is usually ready-to-eat without further preparation. They may be easily portable, have a long shelf life, or offer a combination of such convenient traits. Some convenience foods have received criticism due to concerns about nutritional content and how their packaging may increase solid waste in landfills. So, nowadays, industry is using multipurpose or reuse packaging material to avoid solid waste.
Convenience food is easy to serve but it is loaded with calories, salt, saturated fats, sugars, refined carbohydrates, additives and preservatives. The food industry only has the focus to attract more consumers by increasing palatability so they are adding more sugar, salt, additives, preservatives, they do not have concern about health.
WHO (World Health Organization) said 30 per cent deaths occur because of eating wrong food. But because of increasing concern with cancer, diabetes, hypertension and obesity problems, there is need to control food industry.
Nowadays, FDA is facing many challenges in controlling manufacturing companies and bringing rules and regulations to avoid wrong practices. The FDA started campaign of “eat right movement” and trying to make people aware about eating less salt, sugar, calorie dense food, trans fats, less processed food. Making more harder and harder rules to control addition of preservatives and additives, making rule to label true content of food.
For health focussed convenience food there is need to understand size, shape of the market, transport and storage available facilities, what more to be needed of infrastructure to develop to avoid food poisoning, and microbial growth.
In India, the food industries are growing but some are legal and others illegal. Many women have stepped into food manufacturing and doing household business of preparing RTE.
FDA is facing problems in bringing such manufacturers under legislation. Foods are being sold on street and small shops at roadside are not having enough storage facilities. Also, household business owners are not having quality food handling practices. Good practices, transport and storage increase the food cost. In Indian scenario, increase in price reduces the demand. But now, because of the FDA’s initiative, people are becoming more aware about eating right and FDA trying to reach small-scale industry to provide hygienic food.
Nutritious, hygienic food
Health focussed convenience food industry should take care to provide more nutritious, hygienic food than palatability. Many international and national awareness programmes are now leading people to understand the healthy food consumption pattern to reduce non-communicable diseases and food is the major interfering factor. So people are aware and tending to find more healthier and hygienic options.
Today, manufacturing companies are improving their infrastructure for providing healthy and hygienic practices and FDA trying to regulate them. There is a major role of public to prefer such good and healthy convenience foods to control malpractices.
Now in the market as per people’s demand; many healthy options are available like cookies, premixes of cakes and brownies, multigrain bread, pre-washed salad mixes, soups, frozen food, processed foods and canned foods. In recent times, flour has been sold with other ingredients mixed in, as have other products ready to cook. Packaged mixes are convenience foods which typically require some preparation and cooking either in oven or on the stove top like dhokala, upma, cake and brownies.
Consumers need to look at the ingredient lists and nutrition facts label and of course the expiry dates.
Being a dietitian, I am more concerned about fresh, nutritious healthy food and making people aware to choose good options. I think industries should hire food technologists to improve food technology and for quality control, dietitians for designing innovative, nutritious and healthier recipes.
“Aware consumers, healthier the nation.”
(The author is a dietician)
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