Feb 19, 2018
Adulterated food floods city market, citizens in a tizzy
VIJAYAWADA: Health experts and residents of Vijayawada are concerned over the quality of food items being sold in the city in the light of seizure of 2,700 kg of spurious ghee during a raid at a private transport office at Nunna, by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and police in a joint operation.
The people fear that necessary commodities like groceries, fruits, vegetables and even sweets and confectionaries are adulterated and misbranded and is afraid that consuming such food will affect health adversely. Recent raids have raised serious apprehensions among the residents about ghee and other food items available in open market.
Manufacturers are mostly targeting economically weaker sections and adulterated food items are marketed in the colonies and city outskirts. Consuming such food items can cause intestine related ailments. “For greed of fast money, some of them are producing and selling adulterated products in open market. We don’t know the right place to get quality food items,” said D Padma, a resident of Satyanarayanapura.
During the raids, Nunna police had found that Sunil Kumar, the kingpin, did not have necessary permissions from FSSAI to operate ghee manufacturing unit. He was running an illegal ghee manufacturing unit in Surampalli village and was marketing it in AP and Telangana under popular brand names like Krishna Pure Ghee, Sri Lakshmi, Nandini Ghee and Madhura.
Assistant commissioner of police (ACP- North) K Sravani said that two other persons, Pochepalli Venkateswara Rao and Chitturi Seetharamayya, were working under Sunil for past two years and Ghee worth `6 lakh and machinery worth `25 lakh were seized from the manufacturing unit in Surampalli village near Nunna. “He did not have the license to operate the unit. The spurious ghee was mixed with boiled palm oil, and vanaspathi in the ratio 10:40:50.” The officer also said that a manhunt was initiated to nab the prime accused Sunil.
Despite police monitoring and inspection by food safety officials greedy manufacturers are continuing illegal practices putting public health in danger. “We have registered over 200 criminal cases against adulterators for endangering public health. More such raids will be conducted to put an end to the adulteration menace in the city,” said FSSAI assistant controller N Poornachandra Rao.
Some Of The Fish You Eat In India Can Make You Very Sick
One of the earliest memories I have of my grandmother is her buying fish from the fisherwoman who used to come to their doorstep practically every day (she even cleaned the fish as a special favour to my grandmother). Both my grandparents loved their fish, and my grandfather could never quite figure out why I hated it. Fortunately for them, they had no idea what else they were eating along with their beloved fish.
In 2009, the Times of India published an article about a study carried out by the Indian Institute of Environmental Medicine, which found that Mackerel and Pomfret from the Versova docks in Mumbai contained an unsafe amount of mercury. However, the study did note that fish from other docks in and around Mumbai were found to be safe to eat. Another study, conducted in 2014, found that while there was heavy metal contamination in fish caught in Mumbai Harbour, it was below the permissible limits, and the fish was safe for human consumption.
Toxins like heavy metals and PCBs build up in the body over decades, and are associated with a number of serious side effects.
Unfortunately, fish consumed in other parts of the country may not be as safe. A study conducted in 2015, which tested commercial fish species sourced from three reservoirs in the Cauvery Delta, found unsafe levels of iron, zinc, lead and chromium, among other metals, in the fish. It noted that the concentration of metals in many samples exceeded the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) standards. The study concludedthat the concentration of metals in the fish suggested a risk for humans. Another study found that shrimp collected from the Subarnarekha River, which flows through Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha, contained heavy metals in concentrations sufficient to be a health hazard.
Heavy metals aren't the only toxic contaminants people might be ingesting along with their fish. A 2016 study on fish collected in Hyderabad found that the fish were contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The study found that the concentration of PCBs in the fish was high enough to pose a lifetime cancer risk.
Because of the length of the coastline, fish is a dietary staple in a large part of the country. This makes contamination of fish a huge food safety risk. Also, toxins like heavy metals and PCBs build up in the body over decades, and are associated with a number of serious side effects.
Sadly, there isn't much that can be done to get rid of the toxins in fish because fish contamination is a result of water bodies being polluted. Unless we stop dumping untreated waste in the water, we will keep consuming contaminated fish. This means that the Government must take action to ensure that all waste released into water bodies is properly treated or else, the entire coastal population will continue getting poisoned.
The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.
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