Soon find nutritional value of food from restaurants on app

January 19, 2017

New Delhi, Jan 19: Consumers can soon find out the nutritional value of their food while ordering it from a restaurant or dining at home as the Union Health Ministry is set to launch a mobile app to provide this information.

calorie The proposed app will be linked to the revised Indian Food Composition Tables-2017, which was unveiled today by Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who termed it a "historic" moment as India now joined the league of nations having its own complete food composition database.

Developed by National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), under Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the IFCT-2017 provides nutritional information on 151 discrete food components for 528 key foods.

The data originates from regional composite samples averaged from six geographical regions of the country.

"(We are exploring) If we can simplify this heavy two-kg book and translate into an app which a common man can understand. If a person has pizza, how much he has added, has he added any protien, or added calories or carbohydrates? "If we are able to develop that, we will be able to translate healthy food practices for a common man through this app. This will be a tedious task," Nadda said while addressing International Symposium on 'Food composition in Nutrition and Health'.

He said he has asked the ICMR to convert this (book) into a mobile app as the present document has been written in a scientific language and it is hard for a common man to understand.

"We have asked it to be made into a common language. So that a common man can understand and in his day-to-day life, the food that he takes, what are the nutrient components, he can get it. We want that it comes out with an app.

"ICMR and NIN is working on it. We will come out with it soon. Common man can also get this scientifically written data in common language," he said.

The book not only provides data of regular nutrients in foods but also on a while range of bioactive substance.

Vitamin D2 content in plant foods is presented here for the first time in the world.

Nadda said it is going to help the researchers as they can ascertain how with less economic input, maximum nutritional food can be given and also help the policy makers to think how a common man can be given food with maximum nutritional values.

Policy makers and researchers will also get good insights into what people are consuming in India.

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COVID-19: AstraZeneca, Moderna leading vaccine race, says WHO

Agencies

June 27,2020

After admitting that the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday said that UK-based AstraZeneca is leading the vaccine race while US-based pharmaceutical major Moderna is not far behind.

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan stated that the AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine candidate is the most advanced vaccine currently in terms of development.

"I think AstraZeneca certainly has a more global scope at the moment in terms of where they are doing and planning their vaccine trials," she told the media.

AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by researchers from the Oxford University will likely provide protection against the disease for one year, the British drug maker's CEO told Belgian radio station Bel RTL this month.

The Oxford University last month announced the start of a Phase II/III UK trial of the vaccine, named AZD1222 (formerly known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), in about 10,000 adult volunteers. Other late-stage trials are due to begin in a number of countries.

Last week, Swaminathan had said that nearly 2 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine would be ready by the end of next year.

Addressing the media from Geneva, she said that "at the moment, we do not have a proven vaccine but if we are lucky, there will be one or two successful candidates before the end of this year" and 2 billion doses by the end of next year.

Scientists predict that the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, said the Director-General of the World Health Organization even as he underlined the importance of global cooperation to develop, manufacture and distribute the vaccines.

However, making the vaccine available and distributing it to all will be a challenge and will require political will, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday during a meeting with the European Parliament's Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

One option would be to give the vaccine only to those who are most vulnerable to the virus.

There are currently over 100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in various stages of development.

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Biryani tops the list of most ordered dishes in India even during lockdown

Agencies

July 25,2020

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown saw many people turning chefs overnight, but those who could not turned to online delivery of food. And not just any food, as per a new report, Indians "craved the most for Biryani" during the lockdown.

The "StatEATistics report: The Quarantine Edition" from food delivery platform Swiggy found that Indians ordered biryani over "5.5 lakh times" from their favourite restaurants.

The new normal might have opened a pandora's box of behavioral changes, but some old habits die hard like the love for Biryani, which took the top spot for overall orders. It was followed by butter naan and masala dosa at 3,35,185 and 3,31,423, respectively.

Biryani has topped the list of most ordered dishes for the fourth year in a row, the food delivery platform noted.

Indians didn't forget to indulge their sweet tooth in the uncertain months of lockdown. Their favourite comfort food during the lockdown period was the moist and decadent Choco Lava cake, ordered around 1,29,000 times.

"The humble Gulab Jamun (84,558) and chic Butterscotch Mousse cake (27,317) followed suit," said the report derived from Swiggy's order analysis in the past few months across cities that it is present in.

Also, as birthday parties moved to video calls, and virtual cake cutting sessions, according to the food delivery platform, it delivered nearly "1,20,000 cakes" to complete these celebrations.

According to the report, on average, "65,000 meal orders" were placed by 8 pm each day to make sure food arrived in time for dinner.

"It was the busiest hour for Swiggy delivery partners and restaurants. On average, they (customers) chose to tip Rs.23.65, with one particularly generous customer tipping Rs. 2500!," it added.

For those who only relied on home-made food during the quarantine, Swiggy delivered a whooping 323 million kgs of onions and 56 million kgs of bananas through its grocery section and hence ensured that its consumers were all stocked up.

That said, it also took care of the 'quick-fix meal' tribe -- consumers who resort to the evergreen college hacks of living on instant noodles.

"Around 3,50,000 packets of this ideal easy to cook meal were ordered during the lockdown," it said.

In all, Swiggy delivered 40 million orders across food, groceries, medicines and other household items during India's lockdowns. It also delivered over 73,000 bottles of sanitizers and hand wash along with 47,000 face masks as the definition of essentials' changed during these uncertain times.

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