Right to Safe Food

RIGHT TO
SAFE
FOOD
Hemant Goswami
hemant@safefood.info


We are what we eat

For thousand's of year, this fact has
been reinforced.

All the great saints, sages and
books have insisted this for
thousands of years in Hindu
scriptures.

It is now a well established
scientific fact that change in intake
of food affects our life manifold

The food we eat
 Affects our body
 Affects our thoughts and behavior
 Affects our social acceptance
 Affects our health
 Affects our wellbeing and wellness
 Affects our genes and procreation
 Affects the health of our children and future
generation


THE FIRST TRUTH ABOUT FOOD

Food affects our life in all manners possible.
All creatures born on this earth have a right to
healthy life-giving food.

RIGHT TO FOOD
Is the first among the
RIGHT TO LIFE


What takes away life
 Poison – As contained in insecticides,
pesticides, weedicides, etc.
 Chemical Fertilizers – Which becomes a
part of the food and disturb the balance of
soil
 Unnatural treatment of food, etc.
 Now GENETICAL MODIFICATION of our
plants and animals – WARNING
 Etc...


How diseases are treated
 A few milligram of chemical/ natural extract is given to
you (Medicine). You eat it for a couple of days and you
recover from illness.
 In Homeopathy, in some cases a highly diluted
substance (upto nano-gram) level is given to you as
admixture and you recover from illness.
 If small nano-gram, micro-gram and milli-gram of
chemical can affect your wellbeing and health in
one direction; there is no reason for you to believe
that it will not deteriorate your health. In-fact it's
the cause of most of the ailments in todays world.


World War II Poisons
 Uptill World War II, inorganic and biological
substances, such as Paris green, lead arsenate, calcium
arsenate, selenium compounds, lime–sulfur, pyrethrum,
thiram, mercury, copper sulfate, derris, and nicotine
were used, but the amounts and frequency of use were
limited, and most pest control employed cultural
methods such as rotations, tillage, and manipulation of
sowing dates. After World War II the use of pesticides
mushroomed, and there are currently more than 1,600
pesticides available and about 4.4 million tons used
annually, at a cost of more than $20 billion.


LAW

 Article 21 : Protects right to
life. This right in itself is
sufficient to protect your right
to healthy food even in
absence of any other law.


Directive Principle
 Article 47: Duty of the State to raise the level of
nutrition and the standard of living and to improve
public health The State shall regard the raising of
the level of nutrition and the standard of living of
its people and the improvement of public health as
among its primary duties and, in particular, the
State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of
the consumption except for medicinal purposes of
intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are
injurious to health


Directive Principle
 Article 48A: Protection and
improvement of environment and
safeguarding of forests and wild life
The State shall endeavour to protect
and improve the environment and to
safeguard the forests and wild life of
the country.


Directive Principle
 Article The State shall, in particular, direct its policy
towards securing -
 (a) that the citizen, men and women equally, have the
right to an adequate means of livelihood;
 (b) that the ownership and control of the material
resources of the community are so distributed as
best to subserve the common good;
 (c) that the operation of the economic system does
not result in the concentration of wealth and means
of production to the common detriment;
 …........


International
Organizations
 Unfortunately the role of international organizations,
including the UN has been counter-productive
 The international organisations have become a tool in the
hand of corporates and others who solely survive on
exploitation of nature and people from less developed
nations
 UN and many such international bodies manipulate our
systems and force down things which are not good for our
people and country. Anyone who raises his/her voice is
excluded from the system. There is no freedom of
expression too within the UN and other such bodies. There
are well-guarded limits to express and raise an issue
within these bodies.


Food Safety and
Standards Act, 2006
Section 3: Definitions
 (a) " adulterant" means any material
which is or could be employed for
making the food unsafe or sub-
standard or mis- branded or containing
extraneous matter;


Food Safety and
Standards Act, 2006
 (g) " contaminant" means any substance, whether
or not added to food, but which is present in such
food as a result of the production (including
operations carried out in crop husbandry, animal
husbandry or veterinary medicine), manufacture,
processing, preparation, treatment, packing,
packaging, transport or holding of such food or as a
result of environmental contamination and does not
include insect fragments, rodent hairs and other
extraneous matter;


FSSA 2006
 (j) " food" means any substance, whether processed, partially
processed or unprocessed, which is intended for human
consumption and includes primary food to the extent defined in
clause (ZK), genetically modified or engineered food or food
containing such ingredients, infant food, packaged drinking water,
alcoholic drink, chewing gum, and any substance, including water
used into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment
but does not include any animal feed, live animals unless they are
prepared or processed for placing on the market for human
consumption, plants prior to harvesting, drugs and medicinal
products, cosmetics, narcotic or psychotropic substances: Provided
that the Central Government may declare, by notification in the
Official Gazette, any other article as food for the purposes of this Act
having regards to its use, nature, substance or quality;


FSSA 2006
 (zk) " primary food" means an article
of food, being a produce of agriculture
or horticulture or animal husbandry
and dairying or aquaculture in its
natural form, resulting from the
growing, raising, cultivation, picking,
harvesting, collection or catching in
the hands of a person other than a
farmer or fisherman;


UNSAFE FOOD
 (zz) " unsafe food" means an article of food whose
nature, substance or quality is so affected as to render
it injurious to health:- (i) by the article itself, or its
package thereof, which is composed, whether wholly or
in part, of poisonous or deleterious substances; or …...
(ix) by the article having been infected or infested with
worms, weevils or insects; or …
(xii) by virtue of containing pesticides
and other contaminants in excess of
quantities specified by regulations.


QUESTION?

How safe limit of
insecticides and pesticides
are decided?

Interesting facts may
emerge


FSSA 2006
 (k) " food additive" means any substance not normally
consumed as a food by itself or used as a typical
ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive
value, the intentional addition of which to food for a
technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the
manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment,
packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food
results, or may be reasonably expected to result
(directly or indirectly), in it or its by- products becoming
a component of or otherwise affecting the
characteristics of such food but does not include"
contaminants" or substances added to food for
maintaining or improving nutritional qualities;


FSSA 2006
 (u) " hazard" means a biological, chemical
or physical agent in, or condition of, food
with the potential to cause an adverse
health effect;
 (zm) " risk", in relation to any article of food,
means the probability of an adverse effect
on the health of consumers of such food
and the severity of that effect,
consequential to a food hazard;


RISK ANALYSIS
 (zn) " risk analysis", in relation to any
article of food, means a process
consisting of three components, i. e.,
risk assessment, risk management
and risk communication;


RISK ASSESSMENT
 (zo) " risk assessment" means a
scientifically based process
consisting of the following steps: (i)
hazard identification, (ii) hazard
characterisation, (iii) exposure
assessment, and (iv) risk
characterisation;


RISK COMMUNICATION
 (zp) " risk communication" means the
interactive exchange of information and
opinions throughout the risk analysis process
concerning risks, risk- related factors and risk
perceptions, among risk assessors, risk
managers, consumers, industry, the academic
community and other interested parties,
including the explanation of risk assessment
findings and the basis of risk management
decisions;


RISK MANAGEMENT
 (zq) " risk management" means the
process, distinct from risk assessment, of
evaluating policy alternatives, in
consultation with all interested parties
considering risk assessment and other
factors relevant for the protection of health
of consumers and for the promotion of fair
trade practices, and, if needed, selecting
appropriate prevention and control options;


Ground Level Facts
 Food we eat is laced with unspecified amount
of poison many of which are even banned in
many parts of the world.
 No lab exists to regularly test the presence of
poison in food.
 No studies exist on safety standards in India.
Most are doctored studies by the industry
handed over to the ministry.
 Situation is extremely bad …... chemicals and
poison form part of our daily diet


What we must DEMAND
 Right to choose our food
 Right to have labeling on all food products
about the chemical and insecticide/ pesticide
residues on all food items (batch-to-batch)
 Right to get any food item tested immediately
without any delay and without any exorbitant
charges.
 Right to have labeling on all GM foods


We Demand
Labeling and declaration on all food items
about;
(1) Insecticide, Pesticide (Poison)
contents on all food items at all stages
(2) About the fact if any of the ingredient
used has been genetically modified
(3) About the possible side-effects of the
residue chemicals and GM substance
in the food items


We Reclaim
Our RIGHTS

 Right to Safe Food
 Right to Life


Right to Safe Food

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Right to Safe Food

Similar to Right to Safe Food (20)

More from Burning Brain Society

More from Burning Brain Society (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Right to Safe Food