Delhi Bans Maggi Noodles: 5 Facts You Should Know And How It Affects You

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India examined a total of 13 packages of Maggi noodles from Delhi. Out of which 10 packages contained nearly twice the legally allowed amount of lead, a toxic metal. The prescribed limit is 2.5 parts per million.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) asked Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab to repeat its tests again on Maggi, but found the tests conducted by Delhi and Kerala to be “absolutely authentic,” according to Live Mint.

“As a national regulator we have to look at it, I may not need to wait for the reports from all the 29 states but I must have a representative kind (of tests reports),” FSSAI Chairman Yudhvir Singh Malik said.

Apart from lead, MSG was also found in the samples sent for tests with no appropriate labels. Though the chemical is not allowed in dry noodles, pastas and seasonings, including salt substitutes, it is allowed to be mixed in seasonings for noodles and pastas, according to the Act. As Down To Earth notes, this shows that there might be a loophole in the regulation which needs to be plugged soon.

MSG is often added to packaged food as a flavour enhancer, but it can cause headaches, chest pain and nausea in some people.

Responding to a question as how the test results could have shown MSG when the Maggi label states that there is ‘no added MSG’. Nestle India responded, "We do not add the flavour enhancer MSG (E621) to Maggi noodles in India. However, the product contains glutamate from hydrolyzed groundnut protein, onion powder and wheat flour. Glutamate produces a positive result in a test for MSG."

Nestlé has said it tested samples from more than 1,000 production runs of Maggi noodles. “Internal and external tests show that lead levels are well within the limits specified by food regulations,” the company said in a statement.

Nestlé said it tested samples in-house in India from 1,000 production runs of noodles. Separately, it asked an independent lab to test samples from another 600 production runs. Together, it said, the tests covered 125 million packets of noodles.

The tests, conducted on a dozen samples, at the Regional Public Analyst Laboratory in Gorakhpur, found lead content to be 17.2 ppm, much higher than the maximum permissible limit. The tests also found MSG in the product, even though the label did not mention MSG as an ingredient, said FDA commissioner Pravin Kumar Singh. A notice was then sent to Nestle India for violation of FDA regulations, according to a report by Live Mint.

Nestle challenged the test results in July. The Maggi samples were then sent to the apex central food testing laboratory in Kolkata, FDA officer V.P. Pandey said. The results of those tests came out in April 2015 and confirmed the earlier results of the Gorakhpur lab.

Now, the additional chief judicial magistrate of Barabanki has summoned Nestle India executives on 1 July 2015 under sections 58 and 59 (1) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.