New Delhi: The food regulator of India, FSSAI has banned the use of silver foil with the animal extracts in food products. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued a gazette notification on Tuesday that said silver leaf cannot be manufactured using any animal material of animal origin at any stage.
A senior official at FSSAI told “State food regulators will take action against manufacturers who still use animal parts to make chandi varq.” Modern machinery is equipped of manufacturing fine silver leaves, which bypasses the traditional method. The notification has also fixed norms for thickness, weight and purity of silver to ensure hazardous aluminium foil is not passed off as silver leaf.
Silver leaf, which is used to garnish Indian sweets, traditional desserts and spices such as cardamom and paan etc, is traditionally manufactured by placing silver between the intestines of animals obtained from slaughterhouses and hammering it thin.