We eat to live, not to die

HOW unsafe the food we eat and how useless the drives against food adulterers were revealed in a report of a national English daily on Wednesday. The report said, no food we eat is free from adulteration. We don’t know whether the meat, fish, fruits or vegetables that we buy for consumption everyday are treated with toxic and poisonous chemicals or not. Hapless people have to consume adulterated foods detrimental to health, as the government’s anti-adulteration drive is yet to prove enough to deter the perpetrators. People are continuously exposed to serious health hazards due to widespread food adulteration around the country.
According to an icddr,b expert, mixing of lower quality ingredients is adulteration and adding toxic chemicals is contamination. Both are widely practised in the country. Poisonous chemical residues in food items badly affect children’s mental and physical growth and women’s fertility. Incidences of cancer, diabetes, and kidney diseases are on the sharp rise due to food adulteration. In effect, consuming these foodstuffs is otherwise nothing but inviting a slow death.
The Right to safe food is recognized in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of Bangladesh. There are laws and regulations to contain adulteration of food such as Bangladesh Standard Testing Institute (BSTI) Ordinance of 1985, and the Pure Food Ordinance of 2005. But the problem lies in its implementation by the concerned authorities. As a result, food adulteration has apparently remained neglected for years despite court orders and anti-adulteration laws.
Food adulteration has two adverse impacts; one is causing deadly diseases in the human body and another is the draining down of public money. It affects people’s productivity and thus ultimately hinders development of the country. Greed for quick and excessive profits and moral degradation among food traders especially the middlemen are behind this shocking situation.
It is appalling that most of the culprits engaged in food adulteration most often go unpunished. The drives (though occasionally) against food adulterers are apparently limited to the capital. Our viewpoint is that there must be a countrywide relentless enforcement of existing laws with the execution of the highest penalty possible. Ethical practices among the business community are urgently needed. In this regard, media and the rights groups should be more vocal and must play an active role in developing a mass consciousness against food adulteration.
The government should formulate a food policy in conjunction with our agriculture policy so as to check the toxicities and adulteration from the very point of production. The countrymen must have the guarantee that they are not swallowing poison in the name of food and consequently be subjected to slow death and thus deprived of a long and healthy life.