Australia has got some stringent regulations on food. It publishes the list of items prohibited to bring into the country. See this attachment for more AUSTRALIA CAN YOU BRING IT?
AQIS guidelines are good and they are really great as long as the foods you bring are labeled and have the list of ingredients published. This is good. The guidelines contain the list of items that are to be inspected but you will be at their subjective decisions after inspections to become lucky or unlucky.
20th century Australia was in dark ages as far as the spices from India were concerned. Having the spices inspected on several of occasions, they were found sometimes okay and sometimes not okay as the foods that I can bring in. Pickles were not okay. Sweets were not okay.
However, 21st century Australia seems to be still in dark ages. After verifying independently the foods that we CAN bring, they become foods that we CANNOT bring even after explaining that those foods do not contain any prohibited items and they were let into the country on prior travels. This one really baffles me as Australia is much more British than USA and British should know spices more than anyone else in the world, but US seems to know more about spices than Australia.
Why is this happening? Just because they are not labeled? Yes. I think that seems to be reason. The home-made stuff is still at the mercy of Quarantine officers, subjective decisions and their knowledge of spices. Don’t just think that if you are carrying them from US to Australia you are safe, but be prepared to accept that even if US has let the food in, that Australia may NOT!
This has to end. We all are fond of our home-made stuff and learning from the hazards of manufactured food, I would prefer the foods that are made at home and have a long shelf life than many of the labeled foods.
How can we educate Australia or for that matter any country?
Please suggest some things that we can do to make the world understand that home-made foods will become a highly preferred items than the manufactured items. These foods are not foods per se, but ingredients to make foods and they do last longer than the manufactured foods or organically produced foods. And when the whole world is turning into tailoring products for individual taste, why do you bar such efforts to support the health conscious people?