How to establish consumer rights

Food adulteration with poisonous chemicals has reached a dangerous level posing serious health hazards in Bangladesh. The problem is now alarming and people are suffering from food phobia. The media has dubbed it 'silent killer'. It is very difficult to find a sector of food industry free from adulteration. From raw vegetable and fruits to milk and milk products to fish, meat and processed food-every item of food is contaminated. Almost every day in the media, newer methods of food adulteration are being reported.  Carbide, formalin, textile colours, artificial sweeteners, DDT, urea etc., are used rampantly.

Adulteration of food articles has been marked as an offence under the Pure Food Ordinance-1959. The definition of food adulteration, according to this ordinance, states that an article of food shall be deemed "adulterated", if any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength, or if any substance has been substituted wholly or in part, or any of the normal constituents has been wholly or in part abstracted so as to render it injurious to health, or if it is mixed, coloured, powdered, coated or stained in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed, or it contains or is mixed or diluted with any substance in such quantity so as to the prejudice the purchaser or consumer, or if it contains any poisonous or harmful ingredient which may render it injurious to health, or it is not of the nature, substance or quality which it purports to be or which it is represented to be by the manufacturer or the seller. According to Chambers 21st Century Dictionary (1996) "Adulteration" means "debasing something or rendering it impure by mixing impure, unsafe or unwholesome, prohibited substance to a poisonous level harmful for body and health.  The process of lowering the nutritive value of food either by removing a vital component or by adding substances of inferior quality is called food adulteration. The substance that is used to lower the quality is known as adulterant.

There are many reasons for food adulteration. Adulteration may be intentional or unintentional. The main purpose of adulteration is the tendency to make money on the part of some selfish producers and traders. They want to make more profit in less time by increasing food production, preserving food, making food look fresh and natural.

In Bangladesh, the most common types of food adulteration are well known. Milk is adulterated by adding water, starch, skim milk powder and removing cream. Ghee and butter are adulterated with vanaspati, argemone oil and animal fats. In order to improve the flavour of adulterated ghee tributyrin is added. The argemone oil used to adulterate ghee and butter is highly toxic. It causes a disease called dropsy. Watery fluid collecting in some parts of the body is the main symptom.  It affects the normal functioning of the body. It may also paralyse the limbs. Cereals like rice and wheat are mixed with stones, sand grits and mud to increase the bulk. Wheat flour is mixed with powdered lime, talcum powder and Bengal gram flour is adulterated with lathyrus flour. Pulses are adulterated with Khesari dal, stone etc. Edible oil is mixed with cheaper oil, toxic oil and mineral oil. Washing soda often added to powdered sugar and other food items, may cause intestinal disorders. Honey is adulterated with sugar and jiggery. Turmeric powder is mixed with metanil yellow and chilli powder is mixed with coloured saw dust, brick powder.

Recently, mixture of sodium cyclamate with different articles of food, such as sugar, biscuits and eatables made of sugar has become a cause of common concern. Sodium cyclamate is a poisonous chemical substance which causes serious injury to humans, particularly to the children. Intake of sodium cyclamate may result in the outcome of serious diseases like cancer and ulceration in different parts of human body.

Low-cost ice creams are liked by school children as they are sweet and colourful, but these are prepared using unclean water and the dyes that are used are industrial dyes supposed to be used for dyeing clothes. These dyes are hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic and carcinogenic.

Experts, including physicians, point to the likely hazards of the chemicals and artificial substances on human health. According to them, formalin applied to vegetables, fish, fruit, meat and milk may be a probable cause for throat cancer, blood cancer, childhood asthma and skin diseases. Colouring agents chrome, tartzine and erythrosine used in spices, sauces, juices, lentils and oils may cause cancer, allergy and respiratory problems. Calcium carbide may lead to cancer in kidney, liver, skin, prostate and lung. The increasing recurrence of patients suffering from cancer, diabetes and kidney diseases throughout the country may, in large part, be due to the consumption of adulterated food. Poisonous residues in food items leave the worst impact on children's mental and physical growth and women's fertility.

Now-a-days, many sweetmeat producers use dye to make their sweets brighter. Most of street foods like Chanachur, Piyaju, Singara, Samucha etc., are fried in used automobile lubricants to increase crispiness. They also use different carcinogenic, flavouring and chemical agents to add brightness in colour and appearance.

Glaucoma, cardiac arrest, anaemia, abortion, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea etc., may be caused due to food adulteration. There has been a wide circulation of views for controlling different kinds of adulteration of foodstuff. Mobile courts are now at work in the capital and the district headquarters to detect hotels and restaurants selling harmful foodstuff. Electronic media has been giving wide coverage to various forms of food adulteration. Conscious stakeholders have also come forward to express their thoughtful research on the effects of adulterated food on human body.

Food processing industry must ensure prevention of food-borne diseases by stopping food adulteration. Maintenance of food standards also promotes participation in international trade in food products and stimulates economic development.

Consumers must be vigilant about identifying adulterated food and wrong branding of articles by unscrupulous manufacturers. To establish consumer rights effectively in Bangladesh, law-makers, business promoters, the media and the civil society could advocate in favour of the following steps: a). establishing separate consumer court to deal with cases of violation of consumers' rights; b) empowering the consumers so that they can sue against the violators; c) awareness building by the civil society and the media about the rights of the consumers.

The writer, a food researcher,

is  post-graduate in Food Engineering, Mymensingh Agricultural University.

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