Urbanization in Bangladesh has negatively impacted food quality and public health. Widespread food adulteration occurs due to ineffective laws, lack of enforcement, and corruption. Many food items contain harmful substances added to increase profits. Common adulterants include chemicals in fruits and vegetables to artificially ripen them, toxic dyes in spices, and formalin in fish. Proper testing is needed to identify adulterants but facilities are outdated. Stricter laws and higher penalties are required to deter unscrupulous traders from endangering public health through widespread food contamination.

1. Eating Away Our Health / Aasha Mehreen Amin, Avik Sanwar Rahman, Shamim Ahsan and
Imran H. Khan
One of the biggest casualties of urbanisation in this country has been the quality of life, a large
part of which includes good health. With a culture of malpractice seeping into every sector and
level it is hardly surprising that it has reached the most important of our basic needs--food.
With ineffective, outdated laws, lack of enforcement and institutional corruption there is an
overwhelming indifference to consumer rights and public health. Dishonest food manufacturers
and traders are having a free reign in the market adding harmful substances, selling
contaminated food or tampering with the original content of the food item. The government has
various bodies to control food quality, but why aren't they doing their job?
Every now and then we are shocked by media reports of ingenious forms of adulteration of food
that we consume regularly. According to IPH (Institute of Public Health) more than fifty percent
of food samples they have tested are adulterated. Food colouring is a form of adulteration. A
toxic artificial dye is used to colour fruits and vegetables such as melons and tomatoes to give
them a rich colour. Ironically even food colour is being adulterated. Substandard food colour is
finding its way into many types of food. This includes the reddish jelapi, and the saffron beguni,
peaju or alur chop. Candy, chips, ice cream, chewing gum and even biryani may contain large
amounts of poor quality food colour. Textile dyes such as carbide and ethopene are also being
used to colour different iftar items to attract customers. Urea fertiliser is used while frying muri
to whiten it. Cyanide is used to give mustard oil extra bite.
Brick dust is mixed with chilly powder and a poisonous yellow colourant is mixed with turmeric
powder to make it more yellow. Water and salt are also mixed with these spices to increase
weight. Mangoes, jackfruit, lychees, watermelon, pineapple, papaya and bananas are artificially
ripened using a carcinogenic chemical called ethylene oxide. In bananas, another chemical
called Calcium Carbide is used which happens to be a sprayed Acetile-gas that releases heat,
says Dr. Golam Mowlah, Ph.D., the Professor and Director General of Institute of Nutrition and
Food Science, Dhaka University. "We should avoid eating fruits and vegetables which are not
seasonal" says Golam Sarwar, Public Analyst of DCC's Public Health Laboratory (PHL), "as the
chemicals are used only when the fruits are not seasonal, because chemicals also cost. It is also
better to avoid grind spices or grind it in the grinder, which is available in the kitchen markets.
Dalda, a vegetable based fat used for cooking is an example of one of the worst cases of
adulteration. "Our stomach's temperature is 37 degrees Celsius and the melting point of dalda is
54 degree Celsius. Thus there is no way that dalda can be absorbed by the body," says Sarwar.
If you think fish is a healthy option think again. Many fish sellers spray fish with 'formalin' -- a
chemical usually used for preservation of tissues. This chemical is mainly used with imported
fish and it makes the fish stiff and keeps them looking 'fresh' for a longer duration. Research has
found that there is 'ecoli' in almost all our food items. Ecoli can be fecal, skin, hair etc. If proper
sanitation codes of conducts are to be followed, these forms of contamination must be totally
absent in all food items. Cooking oil that is so commonly used to deep fry items should only be
used once but many food vendors and restaurants recycle burnt oil. Once the oil is used for
cooking, it becomes oxidised. The more the oil is used, the more pre-oxide is created which is
really harmful for the body. This gets more poisonous with continued usage.
The business of maintaining food quality is a little confusing considering the fact that various
government bodies handle the different categories of food and food testing. This includes DCC's
public health department, BSTI (Bangladesh Standards Testing Institution) which frames
standards of food products and also conducts testing and the Institute of Public Health. Apart
from that various ministries have jurisdiction over various food items. For example, the
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock monitors fish and meat quality, while food grains are under
the Ministry of Food. The bulk of the responsibility, however, for most of the monitoring and

2. control of food quality, seems to lie with the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). Apart from issuing
trade licenses to manufacturers, the DCC through its Public Health Laboratory conducts testing
of samples after which it can take disciplinary action against the offenders. Samples include
packaged, bottled or canned food both local and foreign as well as food sold on the streets. Each
of the ten zones that the DCC deals with has a team of one assistant officer, two inspectors and
two sample takers. These teams survey the market and pick out items suspected of adulteration.
The samples are then tested in the DCC lab and the public analyst compiles the findings. Every
few weeks the public analyst submits a statement of the findings to the DCC and based on this
the inspectors serve show cause notices to the offending party. If the offender does not take
heed of the notice, the inspector, through the magistrate can file a case and a penalty is
imposed. All this sounds like a foolproof system for catching sellers of adulterated food but
there are several flaws in this mechanism as DCC's public analyst Md. Golam Sarwar points out
making it easy for the culprits to go on with their fraudulent business.
First of all the Pure Food Act 1959 that prosecutes offenders of this kind has not been amended
for the last 12 years. The penalty under this Act for food adulteration is a ludicrously low
amount of Tk 200. "We have submitted a proposal for the penalty section (of the Ordinance) to
increase the fine from Tk 5,000 to Tk 5 lakh," says Sarwar. "Unless the fine is high enough to
scare the offenders, such laws cannot act as deterrents". The last time the Ordinance was
amended was 1993. The Prime Minister at a cabinet meeting on November 1 endorsed the draft
of the proposed Bangladesh Pure Food (Amendment) Act 2004. The age-old ordinance does not
include many new products that are now available in the market but were non-existent in 1959.
This includes the wide range of junk food that is so popular amongst present generation
consumers. Though use of formalin in fish is a well-known phenomenon PHL is not doing
anything about it. "The Pure Food Ordinance 1959 doesn't have fish as a food item. So, we
cannot go for prosecuting traders involved in mixing formalin with fish even if we manage to get
hold of them," Sarwar, Chief Public Analyst of PHL, points out.
But just having an intimidating law is hardly enough to deter unscrupulous traders from
tampering with food if the monitoring system is not efficient. "Food adulteration can be due to
many things", explains Sarwar, "it can be through mixing in harmful chemicals or colourants,
due to pesticide residue or microbial contamination". To find out the exact component being
mixed or causing the contamination requires sophisticated testing with state of the art
equipment which the present Public Health Lab does not have says Sarwar. The lab for instance,
has no facility to test drinking water or the chemical colours used in various items. Bangladesh
Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), the national standards body, is an autonomous
organisation under the Ministry of Industries. BSTI performs the task of formulation of national
standards of industrial, food and chemical products. Quality control of these products is done
according to Bangladesh Standards. Till date BSTI has come up with over 1800 national
standards of various products adopting more than 132 International Standards (i.e. ISO) and
food standards set by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). BSTI certifies the quality of
commodities including food items for local consumption, which applies both for export and
import. Currently, 142 products are under compulsory certification marks scheme of BSTI
including 54 agricultural and food items.
The health effects of having such adulterated food have not been researched but health experts
agree that over prolonged periods such consumption amounts to slow poisoning. Many of these
substances are cancer causing and almost all of them have adverse effects on the digestive
system affecting the liver, heart and other vital organs. In a scenario where the penalty for such
crimes of adulteration is either negligible or unenforceable and where substandard food has
become the norm rather than the exception, the public is powerless and vulnerable. The
government, with enough political will, has all the means to bring about change in the quality of
food and therefore of life.