India: Where Food Adulteration is the most paying business

Last week, the Punjab Department of Health and Family Welfare seized 2,000 litres of synthetic milk in Patiala. In Chandigarh, the administration has so far destroyed 30 tonnes of sweets in the past week -- 30 tonnes means 30,000 dibbas of one kilo each. These are not isolated events. Local newspapers are awash with reports of adulterated sweets and dry fruits, and also have been carrying features on the unhygienic conditions in which the prolific sweet industry operates. Not only Punjab, shocking reports of adulteration and spurious sweets/dairy products is pouring in from across the country. Food adulteration certainly has become one of the biggest proliferating industry.     

This is the festival season. While it is time for you to celebrate by exchanging sweets, it is also the time for a roaring and brisk business for your neighbourhood shopwallahs. In the next few days, tonnes of sweets, bakery products, dairy products, and processed foods will be sold. How much of it will be of good quality and safe for consumption is anybody’s guess.

Let us look at some of common forms of adulteration that you are likely to encounter. Synthetic milk, which was seized from Patiala, as per reports, was used for manufacturing sweets, ghee, khoa, cream, and other dairy products. It is known to cause irreparable damage to your body organs. It is of course a health hazard but if you are suffering from heart and kidney ailments, it will acerbate your problem. Urea, which is used in the preparation of synthetic milk, is particularly harmful for kidneys, and caustic soda is a slow poison for people suffering from hypertension and heart ailments.

The chances are that khoasweets and desi ghee you buy too is adulterated. In addition, harmful colours and other raw materials are used. The colours that are often used contain lead and arsenic and can damage kidneys. You pay a hefty price for mithai made in desi ghee, and what you get in return has no nutrition but animal fat, crushed animal bones and mineral oil. For those who can’t afford desi ghee, the vanaspati too is laced with adulterants. It comes laced with stearin, a bye-product of palm oil used in soap manufacture.

While such gheemanufacturing units abound in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the khoa trade is equally rampant. It is believed that 90 per cent of the vanaspatibeing sold in the market violates the specifications of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA). 

Such is the extent of adulteration, that even pistachio used in sweets is not spared. Unscrupulous traders instead use inferior quality peanuts, cut into small pieces and than coloured with artificial colouring agents. From adulterated pistachio, you can show symptoms of acidity, severe headache, vomiting, and in severe cases it can leave behind a terrible impact for the pregnant women. But by the time the child is born with deformities, it may be practically impossible to link it with food adulteration.

I can go on describing the harmful impacts adulterated foods can have on your health. What is however disturbing is the complete indifference being shown by the consumers as well as the regulatory bodies in checking the menace of adulterated food products, fruits and vegetables. What is urgently needed is a massive and widespread clamp down against the unscrupulous traders and farmers. This will take some time, but let us begin with what we can do. Besides lodging complaint with the health department or your local SDM, I have two suggestions:

• Because of a string of television programmes last year, you will be surprised to know that consumers in Meerut, one of the epicentres of adulterated foods, had shunned khoa products. Tonnes of khoa sweets had to be thrown away by shopkeepers after the festive season were over. If this can happen in Meerut, it can also happen in your city and town. Just refuse the temptation to buy sweets, and believe me you are safe. 
• For the mithaiwallahas and bulk manufacturers. Why can’t they form an association of those traders/manufacturers who you can guarantee to sell quality products? Why can’t they follow the standardised quality norms spelled out by the health department? This association can vouch for quality and publicise through media listing reliable shops/outlets in different cities/town. This is the only way to regain the confidence of the consumers. 

Safe Food: People's initiative to fight food adulteration

I haven't yet met someone who can say that he/she is not a victim of rampant food adulteration. Despite a number of official bodies looking into food adulteration, and the constitution of a National Food Safety and Standards Authority in 2006, the menace of food adulteration has only grown. Everyone complains, but no one is willing to do anything. Somehow, we have accepted it as in inevitable reality, howsoever damaging it may be for our family, that we have no option but to live with.

Jitender Agarwal, a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, is certainly not among them. For almost two years he has been chasing me, and accosting me with the need to do something. I would listen to him patiently, and urge him time and again to take on the responsibility of creating a wider awareness. He wasn't content with only my words of encouragement, and finally roped me to head a registered society -- Safe Food.

Safe Food was formally launched at Meerut on April 4. This is purely a citizen's initiative, and the overwhelming response that I witnessed at the launch gives me strength and hope that people are now willing to take the bull by the horn. Local leaders, from different segments of society and religion, stood up to extend support in any way -- moral, physical and financial.

Speaking at the launch ceremony of Safe Food at Meerut on April 4, 2010

After the launch ceremony was over, I had invited those who feel concerned and outraged, and feel the need to do something, to stay back and join us in a strategy session. I knew this was not something that people who attend and participate in seminars/conferences or even launch ceremonies are used to, however the response was not only encouraging but gives me tremendous hope. We were able to plan for a number of activities with attached timelines, and also people came forward to take on responsibilities voluntarily.

I will have something to share with you after April 30. By that time, various team leaders would be able to work out an activity roadmap. Meerut in many ways is the epicenter of food adulteration. It is therefore not only symbolic but significant that the movement aginst food adulteration has also begun from the same city.

While the people's initiatives are being worked out, Safe Food is simultaneously getting ready to petition the Allahabad High Court. At the same time, Safe Food is looking to network with similar organisations and civil society initiatives in different parts of the country, region and also internationally. I am sure that Safe Food will extend its reach and activities to various parts of the northern region, and gradually emerge as a rallying force throughout the country.

I have always believed in people. I know once they take control, they will end up cleansing the rotten system. Let us all join hands to remove this cancerous growth from our midst. You don't have to wait for any doctor to come and advise you, it is hightime you took on the responsibility yourself. Together we can fight food adulteration, and ensure that what we and our children eat is safe and healthy.

Safe Food can be contact at campaign.safefood@gmail.com You can also reach Jitender Agarwal at +91-9897619265.