The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has reportedly increased the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) of pesticides in herbs and spices by ten times.
FSSAI clarified that if a pesticide is not registered with the Central Insecticides Board & Registration Committee (CIB&RC), the MRL of 0.1 mg/kg will apply to spices and culinary herbs.
However, in 2022, FSSAI stated on their website that for pesticides not registered with CIB&RC, a default MRL of 0.01 mg/kg or Below Detection Limit (BDL) would apply.
According to an article shared by Down to Earth, the FSSAI issued a notification stating that the MRLs for pesticides in spices and culinary herbs have been set based on field trial data received from the CIBRC after proper field trials.
However, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) India has objected to this mandate saying the CIBRC does not even conduct field trials of pesticides and that all data is provided by manufacturing companies and CIBRC merely approves the pesticides based on that data.
A recent press release from the Bhutan Food and Drug Authority (BFDA) they said that the levels of ethylene oxide detected in spices do not pose a significant concern to public health.
An Indian vlogger Dhruv Rathi claims that when countries like Singapore and Hong Kong banned MDH and Everest Masala after detecting ethylene oxide (EtO) in these products, FSSAI requested additional time to verify these findings.
In his vlog, Dhruv Rathi mentions that an Indian named Chirag Barjatya sent samples of MDH and Everest Masala to a European Hygiene and Health Laboratory for testing. Within four days, the laboratory results confirmed that the levels of EtO in these spices were not permissible.
This pesticide which is categorized under Group 1 is extremely carcinogenic to humans linked with the risk of breast and lymphohematopoietic.
The EU has reportedly found carcinogenic substances in 527 Indian food items. This suggests serious concerns over the safety standards and regulatory compliance of these products in accordance with EU food safety regulations.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has denied entry to 31% of Indian food shipments. This indicates that a substantial portion of Indian food exports to the United States did not meet the regulatory requirements or failed to pass inspection based on safety and quality standards enforced by US authorities.
This is why the EU has a zero-tolerance policy for EtO by banning every product in the European countries that contains EtO.
In Singapore, the maximum allowed limit of EtO is much higher than Europe, which is 50 mg/kg which is 500 times more than Europe.
Despite this, when they tested Everest’s Fish Curry Masala, they found that this chemical exceeded their permissible limit.
In countries like Hong Kong, it is not only banned for fumigation but also for use it as a pesticide, it can drive fines up to HK$50,000 and imprisonment for 6 months.
Still then, the owner of MDH has said that it is found in 1 of their 60 products and the other spices are safe to consume. On the other hand, MDH also claims that their products are safe.
EtO is used to kill bacteria such as Salmonella, however, according to the US FDA, they revealed that between October 2022 and September 2023, 15 percent of MDH spices imported into America were refused due to Salmonella contamination.
But over the next period, from October 2023 to the present day, the rate of rejection is 31 percent.
The European Rapid Alert System for FOOD and Feed (RASFF) between March 2019 and March 2024 shows that there have been 985 RASFF notifications regarding Indian imports that have been filed under a serious category (this not only included spices, but many other products imported from India).
The question here is why is Bhutan not banning such products, especially the spices which has been a topic of concern, despite FSSAI increasing the pesticide level up to 10 times.
There are also unanswered questions on other products from Bhutan’s largest import market.
