Editorial
How hazardous is the protein we consume?
Seminal risk in poultry and fish feed needs addressing urgently
Extensive use of chemically treated tannery wastes to produce feed for fish and fowls containing chromium and lead in dangerous levels may have entered our food chain as far as our consuming protein, an otherwise a vital ingredient of human nourishment, goes. This evil practice dating back to a decade has been putting public health to serious carcinogenic hazards to liver and kidney causing incalculable damage to human organs.
Tannery wastes that should have normally been disposed of through standard effluent treatment to keep the environment clean, turn into a lucrative business for a whole range of vested groups gravitating around it. They collect these on payment to tannery owners, supplying them to feed factory owners who then process it into poultry and fish feed who in turn sell these off to poultry and fish firm owners. The feed so produced costs cheaper than imported feeds, that being the stimulating factor for the vicious business.
The point needs hardly any elaboration that the exponential expansion of the poultry and fish industry has been a great boon as a source of protein for a vast majority of people. If the growth and nourishment of children and protein consumption generally from eggs, meat and fish is fraught with such dangers then we are lacking in the basics of providing safe food, thereby adding a new dimension to food security.
Now that a study by Dhaka University and Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) has established higher rate of chromium in eggs and poultry meat than the tolerable level, and the media has taken issue with it, it's highly imperative for the government to set up a committee for scientific inquiry with the following suggested terms of reference: (A) determining how serious and pervasive the practice is and to what extent has it damaged public health and is capable of doing so further; (B) if the findings are found to be dreadful formulate immediate steps to ban the practice; (C) if, however, the scientific appraisal does not point to serious risks, then devise ways and means to prevent the practice posing any serious threat to public health; and (D) make it mandatory for the feed manufacturing factories to adopt hazard-free feed processing modelled on best practice methods applied in the region itself. It is not a tall order but an essential one to redeem.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 
Related News
Why build roads through a reserved forest?
1 hour(s) ago
Editorial
An alarming report on children’s exposure to climate risks
19 June 2026, 19:07 PM
Editorial
Why is safe water inaccessible for millions despite rising spending?
19 June 2026, 08:00 AM
Editorial
BB must confront bad loans’ true scale
18 June 2026, 18:38 PM
Editorial
Dolphin deaths must be investigated
18 June 2026, 08:00 AM
Editorial
Comments