Sushmi Deyl of The Times of India reports the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has banned the use of any material of animal origin in silver leaf (chandi ka warq), commonly used in confectionaries and sweets like barfi for decoration and also in pan and packaged supari.

According to sources in the ministry, the move comes in the wake of concerns over use of intestines of cows and buffaloes in making these thin strips of silver. “The silver leaf is prepared by placing small thin strips of silver between the intestines of cows and buffaloes and continuously hammering these bundles for up to eight hour a day till desired thickness of silver leaf is achieved,” an official said. He said the process was found to be offensive and unhygienic posing potential risk to consumers. Moreover, such silver sheets do not carry any green dot or maroon dot. Hence, consumers fail to differentiate between a vegetarian and non-vegetarian product.

There were also concerns that the silver leaf contained heavy metal traces such as nickel, lead, chromium and cadmium – which are harmful for health.