Serious concern
It is good to see that teams from various government agencies come out of their offices and check for various adulterations that various food stalls and restaurants resort to while catering to the people.
Just last week several such videos went viral on various social media platforms where the officials were seen destroying the food prepared using various chemicals that are otherwise harmful for human beings.
Well this gesture is quite welcoming, but the question remains whether such exercises do really help in achieving the goal they are meant to because the violations start again from where they are controlled as no follow up mechanism is put in place to check the adulteration on regular basis.
Ironically, most of the diseases and illnesses we are faced with are a directly related to the food we consume. We all consume food to survive. In today’s world when everyone is hard pressed for time we have taken an easy route to get the food we consume by visiting food outlets or eateries so that we get the things of our choice and that too at our convenience.
However, while doing so we fail to ignore the rising trend of food adulteration. Food adulteration is not a new phenomenon in the Valley. Medical experts have been pointing to the fact that food adulteration is witnessing a phenomenal rise, which has led to a rise in patients with gastric problems and many other fatal diseases. Though food adulteration has been going on since centuries but the way this menace is turning ugly, is a cause for concern.
Every food item which one consumes outside or even at his home has some element of adulteration. Be it milk, vegetables or any other item, adulteration has touched them all.
Though experts have been warning since years that milk and other products available across Jammu and Kashmir is adulterated in form or the other. The consumption of contaminated milk has lead to multiple issues like gastroenteritis, food poisoning, endocrinological issues and several other chronic diseases. But no one is willing to seek or take action.
If milk is adulterated with water or some other commodity its health values can trickle down to a large extent, but the way other measures are resorted to, are concerning and need to be tackled.
Most of the dairy owners or those who breed cows for milk have resorted to the use of Oxytocin, an extremely harmful chemical. What has worsened the situation is that the ban on this and other harmful chemicals has been lifted by the government almost two years back which has added to the woes of the common man.
Oxytocin is a synthetic hormone which cow breeders use frequently to increase the milk output in cows. But the use of this synthetic harmone is detrimental to the health of human and especially the kids.
Another aspect of the food adulteration is the overuse and over dependence on food that we tend to consume in various eateries and other food outlets. The use of colouring and synthetic chemicals here is playing havoc with our lives with no system in place to check or even control the use of these synthetic chemicals.
KV Network
