New Delhi: Tamil Nadu has imposed a year-long ban on mayonnaise made with raw eggs, stating that it is a “high-risk food”. Its ban has done little to endear itself to chefs who dismissed the warnings as “rubbish.”
“It’s a sensitive product but 100 times better than the vegetarian mayonnaise,” said Gurugram-based consultant and chef Bakshish Dean.
Mayonnaise, typically, is made with raw egg yolk, an emulsifying agent – usually mustard along with unflavoured oil, salt, pepper and little vinegar. It’s an emulsion sauce that is prepared after mixing two things (egg yolk and mustard) that otherwise wouldn’t mix at normal temperature, quite like oil and water. However, the chef agreed that because egg yolk and mustard are used, the sauces need to be stored properly.
The decision to ban mayonnaise—manufacturing, processing, storage and sale—was taken after the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department noted the rising risk of salmonella infections linked to the use of raw eggs in mayonnaise. The year-long ban, issued under section 30(2)(a) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, will come into effect from 8 May.
While Dean agrees that the mayonnaise has excess calories, calling the egg mayonnaise “a high-risk food”, according to him, is unfair as the production of veg mayonnaise is far worse.
He explained that the factory made mayonnaise, mostly vegetarian, is highly commercial. Hence, the quality of ingredients is compromised.
“They use poor quality oil, additives, emulsifiers, and some even add sugar —to lower the cost and give it a dense texture as well as a sweet taste,” the chef said.
Street vendors also use vegetarian mayonnaise for their burgers and momos.
“One day I saw a vendor making white sauce pasta with mayonnaise. It has so many additives and emulsifiers that it doesn’t split even when you heat it extensively… so it’s extremely unhealthy,” Dean added.
Also read: Telangana govt’s war on mayonnaise—it all began with the humble momo
What’s mayonnaise?
Mayonnaise is a condiment of the West — used for over 500 years — primarily as a dip or a spread. The origin of this white sauce is a bit mysterious. There are multiple stories and theories.
The most popular narrative has its roots in 1756, when the French captured Port Mahon, on the island of Minorca. It is said that a French chef was preparing a celebratory sauce after the victory, using egg yolks and oil, and named it “Mahonnaise”, after the city.
Like Dean, nutritionist Ishi Khosla, too, doesn’t see egg-based mayonnaise as a health risk unless the batch has been contaminated or if it is consumed in copious amounts.
“No reports of commercially bought egg mayonnaise being unhealthy have been made public,” she said. That said, Khosla agrees that if not handled well or if contaminated, it can be dangerous. “But isn’t that true for every commercially-made food product?”
She urged the authorities to be transparent about their findings.
If the goal is to fight food poisoning and infection, actions should be taken against the street food vendors selling food items like gol gappa and papdi chaat to begin with, she added.
“Why just mayonnaise out of all things is something I fail to understand,” she said. “Because the storage and contamination point is true for something as basic as water, are we gonna ban it?”