India

Country team for INFORMAS in India is run by The George Institute for Global Health. Indian food composition database using Foodswitch, now provides data of 16,000 packaged food products. Nutritional composition data were collected from the labels of all packaged food products sold in large chain retail stores and retail outlets. A research project entitled “Quality, access and affordability of foods for vulnerable populations in urban, rural and slum communities in India” was undertaken in 2018.  Specific objectives include, for packaged and unpackaged foods, measurement of the types of foods available, the completeness of food labelling, the nutritional quality of the foods and the price of the foods.

The India team is supported by INFORMAS, D. Bruce Neal Senior Director, Food Policy Division, The George Institute for Global Health.

Thout Sudhir Raj

Research Fellow, research & Development, Database Manager for India Food Composition Database-FoodSwitch (India) study

The George Institiute for Global Health, India

Phone: +91 403099 4444; M +91 99597 77976

Email:  Thout Sudhir Raj

 

 

 

 

   

 

Module

Status (as of July 2019)

Outputs
Public Sector (Food EPI)    
Private Sector    
Food Composition Data collection completed 1, 2
Food Labelling Data collection completed  
Food Promotion    
Food Prices Data collection completed  
Food Retail Data collection completed 12
Food Provision    
Food Trade & Investment Planning  

 

Technical report

  1. Salt content of processed foods India.

http://www.georgeinstitute.org/sites/default/files/salt-content-of-processed-foods-in-india–june-16.pdf

  1. Report on the comparative nutritional profile of 943 food And beverage products marketed by 12 large companies in India

https://www.accesstonutrition.org/sites/in16.atnindex.org/files/resources/india_product_profile_report_tgi.pdf

 

Publications

Gupta, P., Mohan, S., Johnson, C., Garg, V., Thout, S.R., Shivashankar, R., Krishnan, A., Neal, B., & Prabhakaran, D. (2018). Stakeholders’ perceptions regarding a salt reduction strategy for India: Findings from qualitative research. PLOS. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201707

Thout, S.R., Santos, J.A., McKenzie, B., Trieu, K.,……Webster, J. (2019). The Science of Salt: Updating the evidence on global estimates of salt intake. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). Jun;21(6):710-721.

Petersen KS, Rae S, Venos E, Malta D, Trieu K, Santos J.A., Thout, S.R.,…Arcand J.(2019). Paucity of high-quality studies reporting on salt and health outcomes from the science of salt: A regularly updated systematic review of salt and health outcomes (April 2017 to March 2018).J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). Feb;21(2):307-323.

Johnson, C., Santos, J.A., Sparks, E., Raj, T.S.,….Webster, J. (2019) Sources of Dietary Salt in North and South India Estimated from 24 Hour Dietary Recall. Nutrients. Feb 1;11(2). pii: E318.

Malta, D., Petersen, K. S., Johnson, C., Trieu, K., Rae, S., Jefferson, K., Santos, J. A., Wong M. M. Y., Raj, T.S., Webster, J., Campbell N. R. C., Arcand, J. (2018). High sodium intake increases blood pressure and risk of kidney disease. From the Science of Salt: A regularly updated systematic review of salt and health outcomes (August 2016 to March 2017). J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich) Dec;20(12):1654-1665.

McKenzie, B., Santos, J. A., Trieu, K., Thout, S. R., Johnson, C., Arcand, J., Webster, J., McLean, R. (2018). The Science of Salt: A focused review on salt-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, and gender differences. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich), May;20(5):850-866.

Centre for Chronic Disease Control & Prevention, India.