No compromise on food safety

In the present era, one of the major challenges is eating healthy nutritious food. Because everything we eat today is contaminated in some way or the other, almost every edible item available in the market is laced with some chemicals, in the form of additives, preservatives, colour and flavor. Loads of fertilizers and pesticides go in the growing of food grains and vegetables that we consume, which while high yielding and good to look at, have less food value and lack in taste. Then there are other various edible items which we buy off the shelf: cooking oils, lentils, canned food items, pickles, various snacks, soft drinks, mineral waters, the list is endless, all of which contains various chemicals, in as they say, in permissible amount. This is the whole gamut of diet for the majority of the people, with very rare exceptions who can afford to eat home grown grains and vegetables without the use of chemical fertilizers. 

This kind of diet, everybody agrees is not conducive to keeping the body hale and hearty, and consequently, the present generations have become victims to a lot of lifestyle diseases. Over this, what is matter of grave concern is the deliberate act of adulterating food products and other consumables solely driven by profit. We also have scores of producers of items who do not conform to the guidelines laid down under the Food Safety and Regulation Act, 2006, distributors and retailers who push these products and sell items which have already crossed the expiry date etc. Needless to say, these people are playing with the lives of the consumers just to earn some extra profit, an unethical and criminal act which deserves stringent punishment under the specified law. In our state, in recent times there have been numerous cases of substandard, adulterated and contaminated food items being sold in the market, which as been highlighted by local media. 

This had led to certain brands of beverages, bottled water, tinned fishes etc being banned. The most recent case concerns the firm Reliable Hydrotech, which contrary to its name turned out to be most unreliable, as suspended particles were found in the bottled water manufactured by it. With the PHED department failing woefully in supplying safe drinking water to the public even around the capital city, bottled or mineral water has become the preferred alternative for city dwellers and scores of manufacturers have jumped into the fray to meet this supply. From numerous instances, it is clear that many of them have not maintained the standard and followed the guidelines laid down by the Bureau of Indian Standards.  

The Food Safety Commissioner should come down heavily on these firms by banning these harmful products from the market and at the same time, there is a need to revisit the licensing process of these firms. Together with this, stricter vigil and monitoring is required on the edible products available in the market, so as to prevent major mishaps of food poisoning and for the overall need to ensure that the public gets to consume healthy food items. There should be no compromise on this front.