My
local vegetable vendor sells ordinary lemons packed in plastic bags. It
got me thinking if this is a sign of improving standards of food safety
and hygiene. After all if we go to any supermarket in the rich and
food-processed world, we will find food neatly packed so that there is
no contamination through human hands. Then there is the army of food
inspectors, who check everything from the processing plant to the
supplies in restaurants. The principle is clear: the higher the concern
for food safety, the higher the standards of quality and consequently,
the higher the cost of enforcement. Slowly, but surely, small producers
get pushed aside. This is how the business of food works.
But is this the right model of food safety for India? It is clear
that we need safe food. It is also clear that we cannot afford to hide
behind small producers to say that we should not have stringent
standards for quality and safety. We cannot also argue that we are a
poor developing country and our imperative is to produce large
quantities of food and reach it to the large (and unacceptable) number
of malnourished. We cannot say this because even if we are poor and
hard-pressed to produce more and reach more food to people, we cannot
ignore the fact that we are eating bad food, which is making us ill.
This is one of the many double burdens we carry.
The other double burden concerns the nature of “unsafe” food. The
most noxious of problems is adulteration—when people deliberately add
bad stuff to food for profit. In India, milk mixed with urea or chemical
colour added to chilli are just the tip of the adulteration iceberg. We
know we need effective enforcement against it. But it is also a fact
that these scandals are not confined to India. A few years ago,
melamine-contaminated milk killed babies in China. Now horsemeat sold as
beef is sending Europe into a tizzy. There are unscrupulous people in
this business that concerns our body and well-being.
The second worry is regarding the safety of what is added to food
when it is processed. This is not adulteration because in this case
additives permitted under food standards are used. The question is
whether we know enough about their side effects. Invariably and sadly,
science finds out the problems too late. For instance, there has been a
huge row over dangers of artificial sweeteners, first saccharine and
then aspartame. In the world of industrially manufactured food, the
problem also is that each product is backed by vested interests that
claim it to be safe till proved otherwise.
Often we know very little about the additives allowed in our food.
For instance, we eat vanilla thinking it is the real queen of spice,
flavouring ice creams and cakes. Little do we know that most of the
vanilla in food is made synthetically, and that this chemical, believe
it or not, has been harvested from effluent waste of paper mills or coal
tar components used in petrochemical plants. It is cheap and it has
been passed for human consumption by the food and drug administration of
different countries.
The third challenge comes from the toxins in our food—chemicals used
during the growing and processing of food which even in miniscule
quantities add up to an unacceptable intake of poisons. Exposure to
pesticides through our diet leads to chronic diseases. The best way is
to manage the food basket—calculate how much and what we eat—to ensure
that pesticide limits are set at safe levels. We have no option but to
ingest a little poison to get nutrition, but how do we keep it within
acceptable limits? This means setting safe pesticide standards for all
kinds of food.
Then there are toxins which should not be present in food at all. For
instance, a few years ago, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)
found antibiotics in the honey sold in Indian markets. It was there
because industrial honey farmers fed bees antibiotics as a growth
promoter and for disease control. Ingesting antibiotics makes us
resistant to drugs. CSE needed, and got, standards for antibiotics in
honey produced for the domestic market. There is no denying that small
producers of honey, who do not have the capacity to handle the
additional burden of paperwork and inspectors, can be hit badly. But
this does not mean we should allow the use of antibiotics in our food.
Or does this mean we change the business of food so that it is safe, yet
protects livelihoods?
There is a fourth food challenge, which may just provide answers to
this question. Food has to be not just safe, but also nutritious. Today,
the world’s panic button has been pressed on the matter of food that is
junk—high on empty calories and bad for health. There is more than
enough evidence that bad food is directly linked to the explosion of
non-communicable diseases in the world. There is enough to say that
enough is enough.
The answer is to think of a different model for the food business. It
cannot be the one-size-fits-all design of industrial production. It
must be based on societal objectives of nutrition, livelihood and safety
first and profit later. If we get this right, we will eat right.
