Why are we forced to eat toxic food?

If you are a foodie, you may not want to read this.

Food adulteration has become so rampant in India that there are high chances that what you eat today is dipped in or laced with noxious chemicals. Be it vegetables, fruits, milk, honey, fish, meat or processed food, you can’t trust the perishable stuff you buy from the market, retail stores or shopping malls. Some of them are undeniably carcinogenic and deadly.

A few months ago, the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries issued a direction to all states to conduct random sampling of milk at village level for detecting adulteration particularly of edible oil, sucrose and even detergents. States were also advised to install milk adulteration testing equipment immediately across villages. Nothing seems to have worked, the adulteration of milk continues unabated.

As a routine, fruits and veggies are washed in chemicals and wax for better shelf life while fruits are artificially ripened using chemicals.

Recently, Kerala cops swooped on seafood that arrived from neighbouring states and seized tonnes of them preserved in formalin and ammonia. Traders from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, along with wholesalers in Kerala, are being probed under Operation Sagar Rani, and seafood consignments to the southern state have slowed to a trickle now.

The campaign in Kerala gained momentum after a study by university students and scientists on random samples brought from city markets found to have contained formalin and ammonia. Formalin, derived from formaldehyde which is carcinogenic, is used to preserve dead bodies in mortuaries. These chemicals were used lavishly to enhance the shelf life of the catch.

Insatiable greed for profits and erosion in business ethics has made our businessmen and traders deceitful and fraudulent, like never before. Lax laws in the country (where culprits escape with a six-month imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000) and the corruption at various levels of authority have made them thrive at the cost of the entire generation’s health. This treachery surely amounts to nothing less than treason.

Food departments in India, on the flip side, continue to be drowsy dodos. Or are they paid to behave that way?

While the blame is on individual traders and small enterprises, even big players do similar tricks to stay 'alive' in India’s highly competitive food industry, estimated to be around $65 billion. The government is making all efforts to encourage investments. But the food adulteration is proving to be a big menace.

After the World Health Organization's 'REPLACE' initiative aimed to eliminate industrially-produced trans fats from the global food supply by 2023, India is planning to tighten its rules. The regulatory authority the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recently announced that it aims to reduce the maximum level of trans fat allowed in vegetable oils, vegetable fat and hydrogenated vegetable oil from its current level of 5% to 2% by 2022, on a phased basis.

Since food adulteration is a concurrent subject, some states such as Odisha, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have already enhanced the punishment to life. Simultaneously, the Law Commission of India recently proposed a similar life imprisonment and a higher fine of Rs 10 lakh and prepared a detailed report on amending the Indian Penal Code (IPC). We need to act quickly; the absence of such rules has already taken a toll on our collective health.

We surely deserve to eat something better.

The writer is editor, DNA Money. He tweets @AntoJoseph