New Delhi, Nov 29 (KNN) Despite being aware about the side effects of repeated heating of cooking oil, large number of street food vendors and restaurants still put it in use for commercial purpose.

To address this issue, the Food Safety and Standards Authority’s (FSSAI) regulations for monitoring quality of used cooking oil came into effect on July 1. The food authority, earlier this week, had issued guidelines for on the same.

“From July 1, onwards, all Food Business Operators (FBOs) would be required to monitor the quality of oil during frying by complying with the said regulations,” FSSAI said in a statement.

 In this regard, KNN India spoke to Arbind Singh, National Coordinator of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) who said that various awareness programs have been conducted in this direction ever since the notification came into effect.

He said that NASVI is taking efforts to make the street vendors aware about the side effects of reheating oil and not to put in use after a certain limit.

Also, he added that after the awareness programs many street vendors has stopped this practice of reusing oil.

However, NASVI said that still more needs to be done in this direction mostly in far flung small areas.

The change has begun and gradually the practice of repeated heating of cooking oil for commercial use will stop nation-wide.

He said “NASVI has conducted various training programs for the street food vendors in order to enable them to voluntarily adopt the hygienic practices to improve the quality of food served.”

In order to safeguard public health, food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) has also passed guidelines that outline the standard operating procedure (SOP) for safe handling and disposal of used cooking oil (UCO) for the benefit of consumers as well as small and big Food Business Operators (FBOs).

Also, FSSAI has notified the limit of total polar compounds which should not go beyond 25% as it will be unsafe for human consumption.