In a recently revealed study, they surveyed the level of heavy metal toxicity in the food in Bangladesh. It was a chart so monumental in size that I was unable to complete reading it. I couldn’t help but flinch at each entry on the table.
We, as Bangladeshis, often called “machhe bhaate Bangali,” eat food, at least twice a day, which is contaminated with cadmium, arsenic, lead, and mercury, all of which are injurious to our health.
We as a nation are swallowing high volumes of this harmful stuff every day, constituting a severe threat to our health. This particularly affects the middle and upper-middle classes, according to the study. The annual rate of sickness as a result of this is nothing if not alarming.
It has become not so hard to believe that all we consume from morning till night is laced with some form of “venom” that is slowly corroding us from the inside. These are the secret assassins that might eventually get to us, in a country which is already teeming with invisible threats to our lives.
Bangladeshis -- we love our food. To generalise, due to our preference for food when we see it, despite knowing the health risks, we are more likely to consume whatever is presented to us, and, through these foods, the poisons find themselves in our system.
The reasons for food contamination are numerous: From environmental and industrial pollution to shoddy agricultural practices, and food processing and packaging, all of these contribute to an overall production of food that is unsuitable for human consumption. This, in turn, is causing damage to our kidneys, our nervous systems, intellectual capacities, and also creates cancers, to name a few, culminating, no doubt, in a most painful death.
The rate at which industrial sludge and effluents are being emitted without treatment is another reason for this sorry state of affairs. Industrialisation is, of course, good for economic growth, but at what cost? Our lives? Without a healthy populace, what is the point of a booming economy? It won’t buy back our lives.
SK Roy, a senior scientist from ICDDR,B, detailed their effects, and I paraphrase: Use of artificial ripening substances, growth hormones, and chemical dyes also contribute to this phenomenon. Formalin injected into our fish, fruit, meat, and milk cause throat and blood cancer, asthma, and skin diseases. Poisonous colouring agents like auramines, rhodomine b, malachite green, yellow g, allura red, and Sudan red may very well give off the illusion of bright and juicy fruit, but the reality is one of damaged livers and kidneys, and stomach and bladder cancers.
Other colouring agents such as chrome, tartzine, and erythrosine are used in spices, sauces, juices, lentils, and oils. The results of these: Cancer, of course, in addition to allergies and respiratory problems. Calcium carbide -- another sleeping agent -- causes cancer in the kidneys, livers, skins, prostate, and lungs. Rye flour used in barley, bread, and wheat flour contribute to convulsion and miscarraige.
Hormones used in cauliflowers results in infertility in women. Agino moto, or monosodium glutamate, used generally in Chinese food, causes nervous system disorders and depression. Urea put in rice also results in the same, with a bonus of respiratory problems. Sulphuric acid in milk causes damage to the cardiac system.
The greed for profit doesn’t really improve the situation.
About a month ago, in Dinajpur, eight children, aged between two to six, died eating highly contaminated lychees. In the same month in 2012, 14 kids died for the same reason, also in Dinajpur, and Thakurgaon. Since then, the government has not embarked on any investigation on the matter.
So what do we do now? Do we stop eating?
Surprisingly enough, there are 16 laws which are there to fight food adulteration, which result in, one presumes, the sporadic drives to check for contamination, especially during Ramadan. The government should be taking a more hardened stance on the issue, so that necessary steps are taken to prevent incidents such as these in the future. Otherwise, we’ll be having poison for dinner, with a side of actual food.