How Safe Our Fashionable Foods!

By Vinod Varshney

Do we remain oblivious of health hazards or we simply are helpless? Both statements are correct. In some matters despite knowing about risks, we ignore them. In some others we find we have no choice. The case of Maggi’s 2 minute noodles is a mix of the two. With growing number of women in jobs finding less time for cooking elaborate meals, such products as 2 minute noodles are a boon. But not just a compulsion always, fast foods are becoming a fad, a passion with growing number of people.

      Such people got a rude shock when they learnt what they were eating fondly had seven times more lead than the permissible limit. Excessive lead has long term effect on health; it can damage liver, kidneys, reproductive system and nervous system. So the court ordered immediate withdrawal of the product from markets, leading to Maggi noodles worth Rs 320 crore being burnt to flames in cement factory furnaces—the same noodles which people were eating regularly to satisfy their craving and hunger.
      The expose has brought into focus several issues. Are Maggi noodles alone the culprits or there is a widespread prevalence of unsafe packaged foods in India? The second issue is why the harmful level of lead and MSG in them could not be detected earlier. For how long had we been consuming the harmful product? With more and more population becoming fond of packaged food, it is all the more necessary that a reliable monitoring system comes in place.
      But, we don’t have adequate number of well-equipped labs to do the job and whatever labs we have, they don’t have adequately trained staff, and in sufficient number who could monitor the quality of food strictly on scientific parameters. When for the first time twelve years ago super global brands Pepsi and Coca Cola were discovered containing pesticides 24 times more than safe limits for humans, it was not the government-run system which exposed the atrocity, but an activist organisation, Centre for Science and Environment. 
      The same activist organisation a few years later again exposed that even mineral water bottles of reputed brands were unsafe. The UPA government then passed a stringent law for food safety and standards in 2006. The rules and regulations after lengthy debate and discussion could be framed by 2011 only. It goes to the credit of this initiative that a government lab in UP could detect the toxicity in Maggi noodles. However, the ugly truth could see the light of the day only because of some dedicated individuals. 
As many more packaged foods, unbranded even more, might be having harmful substances in excessive quantities, it is relevant to find out where the toxic substances in our food chain come from. Polluted air, water or soil, wherefrom? 
      Food safety was the topic for the World Health Day this year, which was observed as a ceremonial ritual. This expose should lead to serious and sustained efforts to raise awareness about safe foods. Not just packaged foods, many traditional foods at food shops are known to be quite unsafe due to use of adulterated raw stuff. They are not tested routinely. And fruits, always considered safe and good for health, like papaya, banana, mango etc, are unfortunately made toxic, more often than not by ripening them artificially with calcium carbide. Who will protect us from this malpractice?
The task before the Food Safety and Standards Authority is enormous!

(Note: The article was first published in the Lokayat magazine: June, 2015)