A Mumbai teenager’s study of 120 adolescents found front-of-pack warning labels helped eight in 10 choose healthier biscuits, highlighting why India may need clear nutrition warnings alongside Maharashtra’s school food ban.
I was fifteen, in a supermarket in Paris, trying to pick out pasta for that evening's dinner. I'm not really a cook. Pasta is pretty much all I do. But I wanted to choose something healthy, the way my mum would. That's when I noticed something on the front of each pack, a small coloured grade, A to E, that told me straight away which one was the healthiest. I didn't have to turn the pack over. I didn't have to work through a table of numbers. I just saw the letter and knew.
Back in Mumbai, there's no such thing.
Walk into any school canteen here. Look at the counter. Monaco. Parle-G. Hide & Seek. Bourbon. Teenagers just like me buy these every single day, deciding in about five seconds, almost entirely based on what the front of the pack looks like. And in India, the front of the pack tells you almost nothing.
This week, Maharashtra's FDA Commissioner directed every school in the state, government, aided and private to ban chocolates, chips, and cold drinks from campuses entirely. The order cites widespread non-compliance with food safety rules that have existed since 2020. It is a meaningful step forward.
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