Food safety in Langar

Recently 10 community kitchens Langar of New Delhi Gurdwaras implemented the Food Safety and Hygiene Standards set by FSSAI of India.

This decision of implementation of standards was made to guarantee supply of healthy food to all individuals who seed meals from Langars.

Langars are famous and popular community kitchens in a Gurdwara that serve free meals to public. They serve free food like rice, lentils, potato curry, vegetable curry, Indian breads, pudding to entire community.

This free kitchen was started by First Sikh Guru Guru Nanak Dev in 1481 ! Langar was designed to uphold the principle of equality between all people regardless of religion.

In Delhi Gurdwaras operate on above principals and bring people together to provide nutritious food. According to President of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) their organization has cleared the stringent targets set by the Health Ministry under FSSAI’s project BHOG (Blissful and Hygienic Offering to God).

This ensures that devotees were served safe, hygienic and nutritious langar at all 10 historic Gurudwaras in the Capital of India too.

All together around one lakh devotees attend langar to take meal during week days in Delhi. More than 5 lakh on weekends and during festival times – Holi, Baishaki, Gurpurb. They provide nutritious diet to devotes and food consists of chapatis, dal sabzi (curry), kheer which is considered as prasaad – food offered to God first.  Committee also tests Desi ghee (clarified butter) and edible oils that are used for langar food preparation in Government laboratories. In addition, they supply clean, safe water from reverse osmosis plant. This water is used for cooking too and prevents contamination of food. Langar area is cleaned twice a day as directed by the Food safety standard.

All staffs who work in the kitchen are also under supervision and they must wear yellow aprons, gloves and head should be covered with turban. Training session and workshop on food safety and meal security were organized for those who distribute and handle prasad with help of a nonprofit group.

Project BHOG was launched by FSSAI in late 2016 to ensure good quality food for devotes who visit Indian temples. Project was launched to ensure all places of worship in India to serve quality prasaad while maintaining hygiene of food for safe consumption.