Kanpur: One-day National Conference & Expo ‘Meetha 2022’ held at National Sugar Institute, Kanpur on Tuesday. The conference was inaugurated virtually by Shri. Sudhanshu Pandey, Secretary (Food & Public Distribution) Government of India.
In his address, Shri.Sudhanshu Pandey emphasized upon conducting awareness programmes to bring forth the reality as to whether sugar is the only culprit for diabetes, obesity and other health issues or it is attributed to physical work outs and balanced diet. We need to also work on product diversification producing nutritive sugars and other sweeteners like jaggery for their better acceptability by the common man, he said.
Shri. Subodh Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary (Sugar) Government of India in his address expressed concerns over sugary tax being imposed by many countries to reduce sugar consumption. Sugar may not be the culprit for us otherwise also as our per capita consumption (19 kg/per annum) is less than world’s average (22.5 kg/annum) and is almost one-third of Brazil (56 kg/annum).
Shri. Narendra Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute presented details of studies taken up by International Sugar Organization which indicates no established correlation between obesity and sugar consumption.
Mr. Alok Vaish, Managing Director, M/s Bajaj Hindusthan Sugars Ltd., who also inaugurated the Expo, expressed his concerns over almost static direct consumption of sugar in the country. In the technical session, Dr. (Mrs.) Seema Jaiswal, CSJM University, in her presentation presented details of studies which indicates that increase in lipid profile, obesity and cardio vascular disease is not necessarily linked with sugar intake.
Dr. Narendra Gupta, Director, Diabetes and Hypertension Centre, Gurugram spoke on myths and facts surrounding diabetes.
The event was coordinated and managed by Mr. Mahendra Yadav, Jt. Technical Officer.
Watch the special tour of the event here-
