We are being willy-nilly ushered into a permissive culture that allows free play to whatever is expedient and appeals to the senses. ‘Restraint’ is anathema and ‘discipline’ a dirty word. We avoid displeasing others, especially the youth, by hiding our deep concerns that may be unpalatable to them, perhaps in the vain hope that may never come true.
With focus on comfort and permissiveness, somewhere we have lost track of how nature wants us to live. The air conditioned homes, work places, educational institutions, transports etc, tend to disable people from staying attuned to, relishing, even withstanding, sheer nature. So is their polished and formal language sans spontaneity; you have often to sieve or decode the wording to know the intent.
The mechanical lifestyle espo-used mindlessly in eating, clothing, behaviour, upkeep of body, fitness and treatment of diseases, has distanced us from the immense benefits abundantly and freely accruable from nature. We forget that it provides remedy and succour for all ailments. “All that the man needs for health and healing has been provided in nature, the challen-ge of science is to find it,” said early Swiss doctor Paracelsus.
Take food items. The obvious choices are what eyes prefer and the tongue demands rather than how much and what stuff the body requires, irrespective of its nutritional worth. So the market offers wide array of attractive ready-to-eat tasty options, and with end, compromises with nutritional aspect of ingredients. Recent confirmation by the Centre for Science and Environment that breads and pizzas sold in the Delhi market (axiomatically in all cities) contain traces of toxic potassium bromate is only the tip of the iceberg.
Hazardous chemical
In 2013, five samples from breads also showed presence of this hazardous chemical, the issue is still in appeal stage. Last year again, another organisation, Environmental Working Group, detected this chemical in 86 breads, egg rolls and meatballs. It was only after current furore that Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) sw-ung to action and banned it. So far, under the relevant Act, potassium bromate could be added with its mention on packing.
Food scientists stipulate levels up to 20 particles per billion (ppb) concentration of potassium bromate (or 1 part per 5 crore) to be safe in baked food items provided baking continues for long or at higher temperature after which bromate converts into bromide which is not hazardous.
How many commercial bakers shall do that is anybody’s guess. Due to its controversial health implications, especially after Japanese studies found potassium bromate causing cancers in kidneys and other body parts of rats, this food additive has already been banned for human consumption in many regions including European Union, Brazil and Canada.
Consider this fact against the recent public pronouncement from a health purveyor no less than director AIIMS, New Delhi on consumption of bread containing this chemical: “On single day, one takes just a piece of bread or two, and not the entire pack.” Doesn’t it sound like the tagline of the food industry’s clarification?
Even before processing, raw crops like corn, wheat, rice, oats, soybean, barley and peanuts are subjected to severe chemical fumigation for enhancing shelf life of end products and prolonged sales according to the Cornucopia Institute. Popularly used unsafe chemicals include chlorpyrifos methyl, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide and sulfuryl fluoride that have potential to cause complications in neur-ological, respiratory and reprod-uctive systems, kidney disorder, lung damage, cancers, respiratory paralysis, even death.
In contrast to consuming refrigerated foods for days or weeks, India has the enviable healthy tradition of preparing each meal afresh from local, seasonal, raw materials with no risks as in questionable genetically modified crops. Not only are the nutrients degenerated in packaged foods over time but the addition of synthetic-based preservatives and flavours tends to disrupt the endocrine system of consumers, weakens immunity and can pave way for cancers as various studies have repeatedly shown.
Nature therapy is premised on the belief, as author Robert Peale said, “The best and most efficient pharmacy is within your own system” or precept of Canadian physician William Osler: “One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.”
Non-dependence on modern medicine and diagnostics is something powerful pharmaceutical mafias with capacity to influence the global health regulators shall not tolerate; for they thrive on creating and perpetuating threats from cancers and existing or newly erupting epidemics every now and then. The sustainable option is, going organic or following nature.
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