This summer, GCHHR warns Goans from consuming roadside ice-creams and cold drinks

PANAJI: The Global Centre for Human Health & Research (GCHHR) has warned Goans against consuming roadside cold drinks, ice-creams, sherbets, juices, candies, kulfis and other similar items, primarily due to the highly adulterated and spurious coloring agents, essences, sweetening agents and ‘fake milk-like substance’, which the GCHHR said was chemically or artificially produced using spoilt milk and expired milk powder.

Dr Prakash Joshi of the GCHHR and his team who carried out tests on more than 100 samples of soft drinks, ice-creams, kulfis and other similar cold items collected from different parts of Goa, particularly the beach locales, found that they were unfit for human consumption or could have dangerous and harmful effects on humans in the long run, and are definitely dangerous for children.

“The coloring and flavoring agents, essences, sweeting agents and other spurious milk items are harmful for human health and unfit for consumption. At the least they can cause a stomach upset or food poisoning and when consumed in larger quantities over a period of time can even cause several serious health problems,” Dr Joshi said.

As the temperature in the coastal state has gone up, people tend to consume cold drinks and other items easily available on the street. However, excessive consumption of sugary or sweetened cold drinks can contribute to weight gain, tooth decay and an increased risk of developing chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart diseases. In addition to this, if the ingredients used to make the drinks are adulterated or spurious, there is a double problem. Expired milk powder is used to make milk drinks or milk shakes with various fruit flavoring which is a hit with kids. However, the flavoring is adulterated or spurious, which can give kids indigestion, stomach ache and cause other problems. Besides, the abovementioned lifestyle diseases, adulterated food items can cause severe stomach ache, food poisoning and lead to more serious health issues even in adults, Joshi opined.

Goa Health department and FDA officials were unavailable for comment at the time of filing this report. We will update this post when we receive any response.