Seldom has any instant food captured the imagination and taste buds of a country as did Maggi noodles when it first arrived in the subcontinent in the early eighties. For a country thriving on fresh food and wholesome eating with prime emphasis on cereals and grains, the advent of Maggi noodles with its 'two minutes' tagline opened new frontiers of instant fancy cooking. International cuisines were out of bounds for ordinary citizens. Although Chinese cuisine was getting increasingly popular amongst the generation X, one didn't attempt to replicate the intricate haute cuisine at home. In this scenario, Nestle's foray in introducing the maggi noodles into Indian market was an instant success.
Television had just gathered momentum after the 1982 Asian games held at New Delhi. India was well poised for its experimentation with world films and food. Our drawing rooms were suddenly full of good-looking people telling us what to wear, what to eat, what to see, who to admire and how to step out of our closet. Tempting days lay ahead. The globalization of India had begun and the world far away was no longer a mystic dream.
Maggi ads targeted the young spirit craving for yummy, out-of-the-box recipes rather than the staple pakodas, samosas, cutlets, parathas etc which our mothers specialised in treating us to. A cup of hot water, a packet of noodles with its little pouch of masala...two minutes cooking time and VOILA...! You got a slurpy, delicious bowl of noodles ....any day, any time. The ease with which one could jiffy up a mouth-watering snack made even our mothers warm upto this outsider rather than banishing it. As times went by, the elders too embraced the maggi noodles whole heartedly. At colleges and hostels it became a mandatory item along with a packet of chips or biscuits. You knew you could never go hungry with a Maggi noodles packet by your side. Summoning up a cup of boiling water to ready the whole thing was never going to be that difficult a task. Maggi noodles was everybody's comfort food in no time. Not surprisingly it continued its dominance for over 3 decades. Product innovations and smart packaging kept luring the youth into the magical world of Maggi despite several sporadic warnings about it being unhealthy.
The recent laboratory tests which found lead in excess of the permissible limit and MSG in packets of Maggi has brought out the unsavoury aspects of an otherwise star-stellar eatable. As a concerned mother of growing kids, I'm facing an uphill task deterring my offsprings to lay off their favourite food for the time being.
Arguments floating around that no food item is 100% safe is tantamount to criminals arguing that no human is angel ! I must say it stands on very flimsy grounds. Nestle ought to come up with convincing arguments in defence of its star product. After all it isn't just any other food item but one that had become a reliable friend of millions of Indians over the years. Brand Maggi has taken a severe beating. Parents and advocates of healthy eating feel vindicated. "I told you it's not healthy", they may smirk but what's at stake isn't just the lab findings but the breach of trust we feel at the lack of quality control over branded food products. Topping it all is the guilt of having fed our kids kilos of toxicity , eyes wide open, all these years !
As of now Maggi Mania Express has come to a grinding halt. Whether it gets further derailed or recoups to come back on the right track is going to be an interesting watch. The wait is definitely going to be more than 2 minutes.
Am I going to start reading labels and researching funny sounding ingredients in an item before consuming ? You bet I am !
