Food adulteration goes unchecked in Rawalpindi

Rawalpindi : Unscrupulous city traders for huge profits are adulterating many food products with harmful chemicals. It is very difficult to find a sector of the food industry, which is free of adulteration. From raw vegetables and fruits to milk and milk products to fish, meat, and processed food, every food item is contaminated. All these food items have highly health-damaging substances.

“The indiscriminate use of insecticides, pesticides, and antibiotics in vegetable farming, poultry farms, and livestock are unregulated. As a result, most of the products we eat contain harmful chemicals, which may cause various chronic diseases” says Adeel Haider.

“Many daily food products such as cabbage, potato, banana, tomato, mango, etc. are infected with poisonous pesticides. Milk is found to be contaminated by formalin, water, extracting fat, wheat flour, or thickeners. Powder milk is mixed with melamine. Poisonous colour and formalin are used in meat,” says Shuja Rizvi.

“Adulteration of foods is a national issue. The problem is not only ignoring the human rights for safer food but also endangering public health seriously with numerous acute and chronic diseases. Our future generation will suffer from vulnerable physical and mental growth inflicted by food adulteration,” says Hasan Sadiq.

Consumption of adulterated food items severely affects human health by producing many acute and chronic diseases. In various kinds of sweets and fast foods, textile dyes are used in an indiscriminate manner. People die every year from non-contagious diseases and food adulteration is marked as one of the most important reasons,” says Dr. Zafar Mehdi.

“Almost all adulterated food items, such as spices, oil, bakery items, sweetmeats, and fruits pose a great threat to public health. If a person eats adulterated food, it is rapidly digested and transported into the blood causing serious health hazards. People, who consume adulterated food items, suffer from deadly diseases like a kidney infection, cardiovascular disorder, early diabetes, liver cirrhosis, cholera,” adds Dr. Zafar Mehdi.

“The absence of good practices in food production, distribution, and sales of goods and services to the consumers are among the major threats to the consumers’ health. Checking adulteration of food is the responsibility of the public health department but such agencies largely remain dormant allegedly for the fund and workforce crisis,” says Abbas Raza.

“The whole supply chain from the producers and importers through wholesalers to retailers will have to be checked and cleaned. Several products are prepared in an unhygienic environment,” says Ammar Hani.

“Only making law is not enough. Consumer awareness is also an essential objective in this respect. A mass awareness campaign is required. There is an urgent need for creating mass awareness about health hazards being posed by chemically treated items such as fruits. We must make people aware of the harmful effects of adulterated foods,” says Ali Akbar.