Editorial
Taking in food or poison?
Mind-boggling, act out on the knowledge
From media exposes to mobile court raids to slapping of fines to grim expert warnings, we have had it all! But nothing has changed in the world of food adulteration, neither in scale, nor in mix of chemicals, nor indeed, in the wicked improvisation of blend and brew. On the contrary, the depredations have only increased -- with vengeance and impunity feeding on kid-glove, or what-could-we-do throw-up of fists in frustration. Never mind, this being a crime as grave as poisoning generations, stunting growth of our children and placing the whole society to unsuspected peril.
Brick dust, white sand, saw dust, and a whole rang of toxic chemicals such as textile dye, formalene, calcium carbide, pesticide, urea fertiliser, you name it and its trace in a lethal dose will be found if any range of food items were tested.
Concerns have come to a head and, quite rightly with the onset of the season for luscious and succulent fruits like water melons, litchis, mangoes, the fruits we need and relish in summer. This has thankfully coincided with a High Court directive to the government that it move against use of chemicals to ripen and preserve fruits and stop sale of stuffs thus contaminated.
Strange indictment on a society where the highest court has to take up something that ought to have been taken for granted as the traders' natural social obligation to deliver fruits to buyers who pay for these not to be given a dose of poison but life-giving nutrients, vitamins and minerals. That which is a cycle of boon rolled on by nature for the good of humanity is being ruthlessly derailed by self-seeking wholesalers who put crass commerce before the sanctity of human life.
They are guilty of a crime no better than killing, a crime abetted by government agencies responsible for ensuring purity of food stuff, whether natural, processed or imported.
There is nothing called food administration in governance parlance here. The chemicals that are used to contaminate food stuffs are hardly home-grown, they are mostly imported for specified purposes. Is there any monitoring of import of such chemicals and where they get to be used in violation of the law? We have a consumer protection law in terms of which we are to have appropriate complaints recording and mitigation services spread all over the country. No sign of these yet. In fact, given the scale of food adulteration and its deleterious effects on the health of the nation, we urge the government to set up separate court or authority to adjudicate cases of adulteration, shortchanging in weights and measures and over-pricing, in that order.
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