New Delhi, Apr 19 (KNN) To ensure food safety for the well-being of people, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is coming up with traffic light labeling measure for food and drinks.

Concerning food safety, quality and nutritional status of food, the draft regulation proposal states that the packaged food manufacturers and firms are required to declare nutritional information such as calories (energy), total fat, trans-fat, total sugar and salt per serve as well as per serve percentage contribution to the recommended dietary allowance (RDA).

The packaged foods will be categorized as red indicating high level of fat, sugar and salt content.

In addition to marking food as red within the specified limits from time to time, the FSSAI may come up with color coding system also.

In a bid to protect children from unhealthy dietary food habits, the proposal would prohibit the HFSS food products to be advertised in any form to children.

Also, GM labeling will be made compulsory to declared genetically modified ingredients on the label with the introduction of draft regulation in accord with food safety standards.

“All food products having total Genetically Engineered (GE) ingredients of 5 per cent or more shall be labeled,” it said.

The total GE ingredients shall be of top three ingredients in terms of their percentage in the product.

Recently, the FSSAI also proposed introducing a traffic light labeling scheme for foods sold in school canteens and vending machines, in a bid to curb consumption of sugary drinks, heavily processed foods and confectionery by children.

 The stated proposal will restrict the sale of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) content foods such as deep-fried foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, processed foods and confectionery in or within 50m of the school premises.

The FSSAI posted a notice on its website seeking views, comments and suggestions from industry stakeholders on the draft notification that would be the Food Safety and Standards (Labeling and Display) Regulations, 2018.