The Food Nightmare
![Photo: Rashed Shumon](https://tds-images.thedailystar.net/upload/gallery/image/arts/food_2.jpg)
Food security has significantly acquired a new dimension beyond having enough to eat in stipulated caloric terms. Now, such concern has been overtaken by a bone-chilling fright about safety of many of the food items we have to consume.
The coarsely demonstrative crackdowns on kitchen markets, wholesale and retail fruit outlets and restaurants selling iftar 'delicacies', have been accompanied by ruthless destruction of chemically contaminated fruits and cooked foods. Our confidence in foodstuffs in general has been shaken to the core and many edibles are being slashed off our shopping lists.
This has a tremendous dampening effect on our appetite, our taste buds have dulled and we are at a loss trying to keep to any predictable pattern of eating. Our health is at a compounded stake with other hazards like water-logging and surface and air pollutions diminishing the oxygen content of air.
Sadly, all this is happening during Ramadan when nutrients are supposed to be derived from a wide and deep basket of victuals. How this is going to adversely impact our health is not being measured, but will all the same be suffered for sure. This is not to give a short shrift to the need for a drive for food safety but the sore point is that it's seasonal, and what is worse targeted at the retail level and not on the supply chain as such. The unplanned and unsystematic crackdowns cause more harm than good to people.
The impunity enjoyed so far by a wholesale culture of chemically poisoning perishables cannot be wished away by ad-hoc measures. The law prescribing deterrent punishment can only be worthwhile if it gets implemented. But what chance a legislation stands against human greed that has had a free run so far? Only incorruptible law enforcement in tandem with social education and awareness can turn the table on the evil practice.
There is no singly designated food authority to oversee and ensure the quality of what we eat. Result: Many cooks are spoiling the broth and forcing the people to stew in its juice.
Whilst saving the people from poisonous foods, an objective that cannot be entirely secured because of the magnitude of the problem, the sheer waste of foodstuffs is hurting the producers, disrupting the market forces and damaging the economy at the other end of the spectrum.
The WHO-prescribed minimal calorie intake keeps out a vast majority of our people that simply cannot afford it. The typical diet of a poor person consists of rice, a pinch of salt, green chilly and boiled leafy vegetable. Maybe once in a month they will have a dollop of lentil and a little bit of fish. They will be only too lucky to have a bite of meat. Several household surveys have revealed this dire nutritional status of a vast multitude of our people. It is these people who critically depend on local fruits to draw their nutrition from, and if that too, is contaminated their frail bodies are preyed upon by all sorts of diseases. With such a component of the labour force being debilitated the nation will have difficulty forging ahead at a reasonable pace.
The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
Comments