Tale of an apple
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Apple is perhaps the most sought-after fruit. It is sweet, delicious and good for health and also acts as preventive medicine, but it is not our national fruit and not even grown in the country. Apples are normally imported in bulk quantities from India, Australia, China and some African countries and sold everywhere.
The electronic and print media frequently show us how fruits in the country are poisoned with preservative chemicals. It has become almost a normal business procedure to make profits.
The poison-laced fruits were first detected in the stocks sold by the footpath fruit-sellers. Now fruits sold in supermarkets and BDR shops are also found to be contaminated with toxic chemicals. I bought some apples two months ago from a shop where people buy various kinds of fruits with full confidence that they are chemical free. It was summer season and the temperature was very high when the apples were bought. One of the apples remained unnoticed behind the books on my reading table. Almost two months later, I found it as fresh as I had bought it! Now I use it as a paperweight on my table. Surprisingly, no insect touches it. Ants and cockroaches always move around the apple but they do not nibble it.
Interested persons can perform this experiment before taking apples. Instead of throwing them out, the imported apples can be used as paperweights rather than food, and perhaps that is the best way to save ourselves from an early death when we cannot utilise our scientific knowledge to discern which is which.
Prof. Lutfor Rahman
Email: lutfor@agni.com
The electronic and print media frequently show us how fruits in the country are poisoned with preservative chemicals. It has become almost a normal business procedure to make profits.
The poison-laced fruits were first detected in the stocks sold by the footpath fruit-sellers. Now fruits sold in supermarkets and BDR shops are also found to be contaminated with toxic chemicals. I bought some apples two months ago from a shop where people buy various kinds of fruits with full confidence that they are chemical free. It was summer season and the temperature was very high when the apples were bought. One of the apples remained unnoticed behind the books on my reading table. Almost two months later, I found it as fresh as I had bought it! Now I use it as a paperweight on my table. Surprisingly, no insect touches it. Ants and cockroaches always move around the apple but they do not nibble it.
Interested persons can perform this experiment before taking apples. Instead of throwing them out, the imported apples can be used as paperweights rather than food, and perhaps that is the best way to save ourselves from an early death when we cannot utilise our scientific knowledge to discern which is which.
Prof. Lutfor Rahman
Email: lutfor@agni.com