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FSSAI notifies regulations fixing TPCs for unused & used vegetable oil
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Wednesday, 04 November, 2020, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has notified regulations fixing Total Polar Compounds (TPCs) for unused and used edible vegetable oil.
Called the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Third Amendment Regulations, 2020, it says, “The Total Polar Compounds in unused or fresh vegetable oil or fat shall not be more than 15% and used vegetable oil or fat having developed Total Polar Compounds more than 25% shall not be used.”
The FBOs were asked to comply with the provisions by July 1, 2021.
It is pertinent to mention that the apex food regulator has been working on the matter and had even issued a guidance note for reference in the past. In a statement, FSSAI has said that it has put in place robust regulatory measures under three major pillars: Eat Safe, Eat Health and Eat Sustainably and prescribed a limit for TPCs at 25% in cooking oil to avoid the harmful effects of reused cooking oil.
Repeated use of cooking oil produces harmful chemicals called Total Polar Compounds which deform the chemical composition of the edible oil thereby making it unsafe for cooking or frying. However it has been noticed that in most of the cases, cooking oil is used repeatedly and even mixed with the new oil, which is not a safe practice, according to a senior official with the apex food regulator FSSAI.
Even there was an order in place by the FSSAI that prohibits mixing of new oil with used one from March 2019.
Meanwhile, the FSSAI, through a guidance note, has also detailed the disposal process of the used cooking oil.
Using same oil repeatedly for frying leads to changes in the physico-chemical, nutritional, sensory properties of the oil and formation of TPCs, which makes the oil unfit for human consumption beyond certain limits leading to several diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and liver disease.
The FSSAI has also taken initiatives like MoUs with various agencies that would help convert the used cooking oil into biodiesel.
Further, all FBOs are required to maintain a record whose consumption of edible oils for frying is more than 50 kg or litre per day. The record should have following details like date, name of the oil, quantity of oil used in frying, quantity consumed at the end of the day, quantity discarded at the end of the day, mode and date of disposal of used cooking oil (UCO) and UCO collected by (name of authorised agency).
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