Basic knowledge about food safety is more important than realised
Saturday, 2 October 2010
A recent seminar in Dhaka on what needs to be done to ensure the safety of food and beverage seems to have missed the very vital role that people's basic knowledge about nutrition, health and hygiene can play in this regard. The Director General of the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) was only partly correct when he pointed out that there are many others that need to come on board in the fight against food adulteration, contamination and other health hazards, mentioning the National Consumer Rights Directorate, the City Corporation, the Municipal Corporation and the District Administration.
Food and water can be rendered unsafe not only through deliberate adulteration with harmful substances, but also through people's habits and standards of what constitutes cleanliness. It may seem an unlikely story to many, but one field worker in the health and sanitation sector claimed that some rural mothers did not believe faeces from their babies could pollute the pond water in which they were washing the soiled nappies ! Indeed, at least one of their urban counterparts has also been 'caught' with the same attitude regarding her infants' droppings ! And a vendor of cut pineapples in Dhaka's Motijheel declared 'his' flies don't eat dirt !
Such innocence, or ignorance, can rightly be blamed for the common water-and food-borne diseases ---- some 80 per cent of our disease burden ---- that afflict people round the year, dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, some strains of hepatitis and the like. Health scientists call them the 'anus-to-mouth infections' because the micro-organisms that cause the ailments, are said to be present only in the faeces from an infected person. They do not exist outside the body except in material recently contaminated by infected faeces, such as when anything is touched without washing the hands thoroughly with soap or ash after a visit to the toilet. Can the 'authorities' guarantee that the food handlers in the city ---- from the lowly vendor to the up-market food court boy --- have their hands squeaky clean? The task of ensuring reasonably safe food and beverage is bound to remain a non-starter unless first, the general standard of hygiene is raised through mass education, and second, the hazards of food additives ---- to preserve, enhance colour, cheat on measure, befool the public, in short --- are made part of various awareness raising programmes about food and beverage.
It has been reported that millers in Rangpur have been using urea, this time to polish rice whiter than normal, to fetch a better price. It is unbelievable that these offenders are still unaware of the toxic effects of residual urea on the health of consumers. After all, there has been enough media focus on its continued use in 'muri'. Many shops and factories have been raided and the unscrupulous or ignorant traders duly penalized for offences including not only use of urea, but sale of poor quality food stuffs, such as stale or rotten items, date-expired imported goods not to forget the use of questionable substances to enhance color or crispiness.
Such activities have managed to raise awareness among some consumers and it appears there has been some expected deterrent effect as well. This hopefully will spread countrywide if the awareness building exercise becomes a round-the-year activity, so that food standards can be maintained by all - seller, buyer and law enforcer. But for unknown reasons, the mobile court ordinance, proclaimed during the caretaker regime specifically to contain food-related felony, was thrown out soon after, according to reports.
No effective state mechanism however, is yet in place to ensure that the quality of all kinds of edibles in the market is safe. But if the will is there the Consumer Protection Law could very well be used to advantage, provided the authorities concerned are consistently alert and do everything possible to make the end users aware of the hazards lurking in edibles -- both ready-to-eat and raw. The power of citizens' groups could be mobilized and marshaled to deter small fry as well as the big guys involved in importing questionable commodities in the name of food and beverages. But awareness about these hazards at all levels -- at policy-making, traders, as well as ordinary consumer levels -- is seriously missing.
For example, monosodium glutamate, or tasting salt, as it is commonly known, is imported and used extensively in Bangladesh, by both high-end and low-end caterers, as a food-enhancing additive, unaware that it is a potent neurotoxin and has been banned in many enlightened countries in the world. Sodium cyclamate is another harmful substance (banned abroad) but advertised and sold here as being 'a hundred times sweeter than sugar.' A variety of so-called sweeteners for diabetics and 'diet' addicts, are widely used, such as aspartame and nutrasweet, which are known to be very harmful. But these are being consumed without question, as are so-called energy drinks which are reportedly laced with addictive chemicals.
There is no alternative to educating and mobilizing the end consumers against the marketing of harmful substances like these in the name of food, drink and medicines. In addition, sustained monitoring is needed in the case of essential food items such as grain, cooking oil and sugar, so that they are not spoilt in storage. Moldy grain has been identified as a factor in the high incidence of liver cirrhosis among Bangladesh's poor. There have often been reports of grams, wheat flour, biscuits, bread and other food items smelling strongly of insecticides which may be due to the indiscriminate use of mosquito repellents inside the shops. Food inspectors ought to address this hazardous practice as well, as ingestion of such insecticides have been linked to leukemia.
Food and water can be rendered unsafe not only through deliberate adulteration with harmful substances, but also through people's habits and standards of what constitutes cleanliness. It may seem an unlikely story to many, but one field worker in the health and sanitation sector claimed that some rural mothers did not believe faeces from their babies could pollute the pond water in which they were washing the soiled nappies ! Indeed, at least one of their urban counterparts has also been 'caught' with the same attitude regarding her infants' droppings ! And a vendor of cut pineapples in Dhaka's Motijheel declared 'his' flies don't eat dirt !
Such innocence, or ignorance, can rightly be blamed for the common water-and food-borne diseases ---- some 80 per cent of our disease burden ---- that afflict people round the year, dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, some strains of hepatitis and the like. Health scientists call them the 'anus-to-mouth infections' because the micro-organisms that cause the ailments, are said to be present only in the faeces from an infected person. They do not exist outside the body except in material recently contaminated by infected faeces, such as when anything is touched without washing the hands thoroughly with soap or ash after a visit to the toilet. Can the 'authorities' guarantee that the food handlers in the city ---- from the lowly vendor to the up-market food court boy --- have their hands squeaky clean? The task of ensuring reasonably safe food and beverage is bound to remain a non-starter unless first, the general standard of hygiene is raised through mass education, and second, the hazards of food additives ---- to preserve, enhance colour, cheat on measure, befool the public, in short --- are made part of various awareness raising programmes about food and beverage.
It has been reported that millers in Rangpur have been using urea, this time to polish rice whiter than normal, to fetch a better price. It is unbelievable that these offenders are still unaware of the toxic effects of residual urea on the health of consumers. After all, there has been enough media focus on its continued use in 'muri'. Many shops and factories have been raided and the unscrupulous or ignorant traders duly penalized for offences including not only use of urea, but sale of poor quality food stuffs, such as stale or rotten items, date-expired imported goods not to forget the use of questionable substances to enhance color or crispiness.
Such activities have managed to raise awareness among some consumers and it appears there has been some expected deterrent effect as well. This hopefully will spread countrywide if the awareness building exercise becomes a round-the-year activity, so that food standards can be maintained by all - seller, buyer and law enforcer. But for unknown reasons, the mobile court ordinance, proclaimed during the caretaker regime specifically to contain food-related felony, was thrown out soon after, according to reports.
No effective state mechanism however, is yet in place to ensure that the quality of all kinds of edibles in the market is safe. But if the will is there the Consumer Protection Law could very well be used to advantage, provided the authorities concerned are consistently alert and do everything possible to make the end users aware of the hazards lurking in edibles -- both ready-to-eat and raw. The power of citizens' groups could be mobilized and marshaled to deter small fry as well as the big guys involved in importing questionable commodities in the name of food and beverages. But awareness about these hazards at all levels -- at policy-making, traders, as well as ordinary consumer levels -- is seriously missing.
For example, monosodium glutamate, or tasting salt, as it is commonly known, is imported and used extensively in Bangladesh, by both high-end and low-end caterers, as a food-enhancing additive, unaware that it is a potent neurotoxin and has been banned in many enlightened countries in the world. Sodium cyclamate is another harmful substance (banned abroad) but advertised and sold here as being 'a hundred times sweeter than sugar.' A variety of so-called sweeteners for diabetics and 'diet' addicts, are widely used, such as aspartame and nutrasweet, which are known to be very harmful. But these are being consumed without question, as are so-called energy drinks which are reportedly laced with addictive chemicals.
There is no alternative to educating and mobilizing the end consumers against the marketing of harmful substances like these in the name of food, drink and medicines. In addition, sustained monitoring is needed in the case of essential food items such as grain, cooking oil and sugar, so that they are not spoilt in storage. Moldy grain has been identified as a factor in the high incidence of liver cirrhosis among Bangladesh's poor. There have often been reports of grams, wheat flour, biscuits, bread and other food items smelling strongly of insecticides which may be due to the indiscriminate use of mosquito repellents inside the shops. Food inspectors ought to address this hazardous practice as well, as ingestion of such insecticides have been linked to leukemia.