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Did you know traditional Indian sweets have different spans of shelf life like packaged food products? For instance, khoya burfi has a shorter shelf life than the boondi laddoo.
According to a guidance note on traditional Indian milk products released by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the shelf life of Indian sweets depends on the kind of ingredients used in them. It is the responsibility of packaged food manufacturers to clearly mention the date of manufacturing and ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ date on the labels.
Mandatory labelling
"In case of pre-packaged milk products, the list of ingredients and the date of manufacturing and best before or use by date should be mentioned as prescribed under the FSS (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011," FSSAI stated in its guidance note.
Even in the case of non-packaged or loose sweets, the food safety authority recommends that the container or tray display information including whether the food item contains oil, ghee or vansapati.
Shelf life
So what needs to be consumed on the day of purchase? FSSAI says Kalakand and its variants such as Butterscotch Kalakand and Chocolate Kalakand should be kept at room temperature and consumed the same day.
Milk products and Bengali sweets should be stored in the refrigerator and consumed within two days, it adds. They include sweets such as badam milk, rasgulla, rasamalai, shahitoast, rajbhog among others.
Sweets that are made in khoya format besides certain variants of laddoo should be consumed within four days. So traditional Indian sweets such as milk cake, mathura peda, milk/pista/coconut burfi, and boondi laddoo should not be eaten after fourth day.
Durable sweetmeats
What can be stored and consumed for a longer duration? Sweets that contain ghee and dry fruits can be consumed within seven days, according to FSSAI. This include kaju katli, ghewar, shakkar para, and dryfruit/aata/besan laddoo.
Take a look at the complete list of sweets and their shelf life by FSSAI
So make sure you don't eat traditional sweets past their shelf life and ask the sweets vendors for information on date of manufacturing.
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