Regulating Our Food Habits

*Saumitra Mohan

          Amidst all the negativity, gloom and doom centring around multiple incursions on libertarian values of a painstakingly built plural democratic society in this country, there is something very positive one came across the other day. This relates to a purported move by the Union Ministry for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to regulate the amount of food to be served by different restaurants and hotels to their individual customers to prevent potential wastage of food.

          The Hon’ble Minister also supposedly questioned the large portions of food served to each person which often results in unwarranted wastage. A section of critics has questioned the proposition as an infringement of personal liberties of citizens as it is not practically possible for anyone to fix up a uniform regime for all classes of citizens as dietary needs vary from individual to individual. Critics have argued against the government’s quantitative food prescription for every individual.

          While there is definitely some merit in this criticism about imposition of dietary uniformity across the country in our eateries and restaurants, the spirit behind the move is definitely admirable. The move requires further debates and discussion for converting the same into implementable law backed by supportive rules. One really finds it outrageous when one glimpses piles of leftover food on used plates in various restaurants, eateries and hotels. The people often order more than they can consume and end up wasting food unwittingly. Huge food has also been noticed to have been wasted in various marriage ceremonies, festivals, parties and other occasions in our country.

          Such food wastage borders on criminal wastage of national resources in a country where millions still have difficulty getting two squares of meals or in a world where millions go hungry every day. The money we waste may be ours, but the resources belong to the whole humanity and we certainly have no right to waste food, howsoever, moneyed we may be.

          It is notable here that there are many countries across the world which have actually put in place strong mechanism against such intentional or incidental food wastage. Such progressive countries inter alia include France, Germany and Switzerland. It is notable that in Germany, the customers in restaurants and hotels are fined one to two Euro if they don’t polish off the food on their plates as part of its ‘eat up or pay up’ policy.

The system was put in place after the customers were found to overload their plates during the buffet meals which come against a fixed price. Customers were found to be conducting themselves irresponsibly after they had paid up the buffet charges by piling their plates with us much food as possible, often beyond their eating capacity. The idea of ‘penalty’ was put in place to make people order or take only as much food as they could consume.

          In another example, people can eat to their heart by paying up a fixed price in Switzerland. However, none is allowed there to waste food by leaving large leftovers on their plates. If anyone is noticed doing that, they are to be charged additional five Francs as a fine. Accordingly, the eateries in Switzerland add five extra Francs to the customer’s bill if he/she does not finish everything on the plate. The symbolic penalty is levied to discourage people from wasting food. It is notable that two million tons of ‘good food’ is wasted every year in Switzerland.

In a yet another positive development in this direction, France recently passed a new law that requires large grocery stores to donate all unused but still edible food to various charitable organisations operational in that country. All the large market chains, malls and stores are required to do an advance planning to this effect by signing formal agreements with various charities with regards to deemed donation and use of unused, but ‘safe-to-eat’ food.

As per this new French legislation, any food that was packed wrong, damaged or is past the expiration date but is still safe to consume must be donated. The law has prescribed specific penalties for stores that fail to follow the government directions and deliberately spoil unsold food thereby pre-empting their consumption by the needy.

          It is noted with concern that there are many rich countries across the world where huge amount of ‘fit-to-be-consumed’ food is wasted every year. As per a 2014 report, 133 billion pounds of food i.e. 10 per cent of its total consumption are thrown away each year in the US. According to a recent report, India loses 21 million tonnes of wheat every year owing to lack of suitable infrastructure and food storage facilities including refrigerated transport, poor roads, inclement weather and corrupt practices. According to another estimate, food grains worth 60,000 crores are lost every year in this country.

India has the world’s largest public distribution system operational with an estimated food subsidy bill around Rs. 1.35 lakh crores and we procure about 62 million tonnes of food-grain every year to meet our national food security requirements. It is against this background that the idea to penalise food wastage is worth commendation and needs to be pursued in right earnest. Our food Security Bill may not have any provision to penalise wastage of food or it may not cast any obligation on the government in power to ensure that the people in charge should be held accountable for their failure to protect food-grain, but we should definitely start thinking about the same seriously.

In a country like India we can ill afford to allow criminal wastage of food by people howsoever resourceful they may be. Having resources at our disposal does not allow us to criminally waste food at the expense of millions who don’t have access to the same. Food security for all will not come only by improving access by providing subsidized food to everyone, but will also be ensured by checking irresponsible behaviour on the part of our citizens who need to inculcate some ‘table manner’ including habit of valuing our precious food.

While we already have a well laid-out protocol against any food wastage in the various FCI go-downs, however the same needs to be implemented suitably to ward against any food wastage including construction and creation of the requisite food storage space across the country as has been done in West Bengal recently. However, instead of quantitative prescription of food for individuals, one feels, a la Germany and Switzerland, we should also have provisions in the proposed law to proscribe any food wastage in this country in any form, be it in a restaurant, eatery or a hotel. This is an idea whose time definitely has come.

It has been suggested that if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average US citizen, four Earths would be needed to sustain them. While we definitely need not try to keep up with the Joneses, the arrogance of mammon has to be reined in if we really wish to have a sustainable development and save this planet for our posterity. This small initiative to be implemented in due consultation with all relevant stakeholders, as rightly mooted, shall definitely go a long way in reinforcing our food security effort.

*The views expressed here are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.