The Impending Food Crisis in Bangladesh Food prices in Bangladesh are galloping by the day, and essential commodities,

such as rice, wheat flour, cooking oil, onion and lentil are now well beyond the reach of the common man. It was not that prices were downward during the five-year period of the last elected government, but these have been continuously creating all time high records during the last one year, that is after a civilian caretaker government, armed with emergency provisions, backed by the armed forces and enjoying the blessings of the international development partners, took over in Bangladesh. Indeed, with various reforms, including a crackdown on corruption, it was widely expected that economic development would further pick up, and there would be an accelerated reduction of poverty in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the records show an unmistakable downturn in the economy with dwindling investments, both internal and external. In fact, Mr. Forrest Cookson, an American free-lance consultant living in Bangladesh, has recently commented that this year, the GDP growth rate in Bangladesh may be in the negative. Compare it with the 6 percent growth rates of recent years. So, the question to ask is what happened during the last one year. It seems that the poor economic mismanagement under the caretaker government started with indiscriminate raids on the godowns (Wharehouses) of large food dealers and importers on the pretext of cracking down on food adulteration. This is one of the usual gimmicks of Martial Law/Semi-Martial Law governments in their initial phase to win popularity and pressure the private sector into submission. Adulteration of food is certainly a problem in Bangladesh, and action against it was progressing quite impressively during the rule of the last elected government. However, the brutal and thoughtless manner in which it was operationalised by the caretaker government had a disastrous impact. Many food importers and food merchants stopped importing and distributing food. This was despite the amendments and inducements introduced later and solemn promises made by the high-ups not to harass them in the future.

Using chemicals and industrial dyes to look food fresh and tasty
The bananas arrive at Sadarghat before first light. One by one the trucks roar into the crammed Ahsanullah Road that charts the banks of the Buriganga river on Dhakas southern edge. The bananas, piled high in the hold, are offloaded into the numerous warehouses that line the streets. As the sky lightens up, the cargo is more visible. They are a deep green in colour and bitter to the taste. But by that same afternoon, miraculously, these same bananas will be bright yellow and sweet. As the trucks pull away an army of workers, spray-cans on their shoulders enter the warehouses and start spraying the fruits stacked on the floor. It is a medicine that helps the banana ripen better and get a nice yellow colour, says one local wholesaler.

Arsenic phosphorous and the carbide produces acetylene gas The chemical, it turns out, is Calcium Carbide, and is extremely hazardous to the human body because it contains traces of arsenic and phosphorous. Once dissolved in water, the carbide produces acetylene gas. Acetylene gas is an analogue of the natural ripening agents produced by fruits known as ethylene. Acetylene imitates the ethylene and quickens the ripening process. In some cases it is only the skin that changes colour, while the fruit itself remains green and raw. When the carbide is used on very raw fruit, the amount of the chemical needed to ripen the fruit has to be increased. This results in the fruit becoming even more tasteless, and possibly toxic. We dont know what the name of the chemical is but it works like magic, he says. Just go to one of the pharmacies in the Dhaka Medical College area and ask for medicine to ripe bananas, he adds. Visits to the neighbouring warehouses reveal that scores of banana wholesalers are using this same technique to transform cheaply bought unripe banana into a golden cargo, going on to supply it to Dhakas ever-growing appetite for sweeter, riper and bigger. Later in the morning, we visit one of the pharmacies in the DMCH area. They wont say what the chemical is but sure enough, it is cheap and widely available. The chemical, it turns out, is Calcium Carbide, and is extremely hazardous to the human body because it contains traces of arsenic and phosphorous. Fish in kitchen markets are stored in formaldehyde (used to preserve deadbodies) The chemical fertiliser urea is used in our rice to make it whiter, fish in kitchen markets are stored in formaldehyde (used to preserve dead-bodies) to keep them fresh-looking, colours and sweeteners are injected into fruits, and Recent studies by the Food and Nutrition Institute, University of Dhaka, have also found Escherichia coli (E-coli), Salmonella, and Shigella bacteria in restaurant food and street food in the city. Eating contaminated food may cause diarrhoea, dysentery and other diseases. Finding bacteria is very common in the restaurant foods. But the more alarming thing is that the restaurant owners do not throw out the leftover oil from everyday cooking, using the same oil the next day. As a result the peroxide value of the oil increases and it becomes toxic ultimately (CAB) Bangladeshs only consumer rights group confirms that wholesalers do indeed use urea fertiliser in rice to make it whiter. Comsumers who eat husk paddle processed rice (red rice) will also find themselves cheated, as artificially colored rice is also available in the market, say members of the watchdog. This is common knowledge, they say. While the rice is being processed, they use urea

fertilizer in the rice to make it look more attractive, thus increasing its sale value, said Miftaur Rahman, a local rice dealer in Kawran Bazar, who claims his products are clean. Most of the red chilli powder used in the market is adulterated - in most cases the spices are mixed with brick dust. Fine sawdust is also often mixed with cumin and other ground spices, say CAB members. Honey is also frequently adulterated, as lab tests have found sugar syrup is often mixed with honey to enhance the sweetness. Nowadays, pure butter oil and ghee are also very rare in the market. Dishonest traders use a host of ingredients such as animal fat, palm oil, potato mash, and vegetable oil to produce fake butter oil. They even mix soap ingredients like steirian oil with ghee, to increase the proportions. Rasogolla, kalojaam, and chamcham are the essential delicacies for all festivals in Bengali culture. But food and sanitation officers from the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) say most of these mouthwatering sweetmeats, despite looking attractive in the shop displays, are made with adulterated ingredients and produced in a filthy environment. In a survey conducted by DCC officials found that 100 percent of examined samples of Rasogolla, kalojaam, curds, and sandesh were adulterated. Bangladeshs Pure Food Ordinance (1959) states that at least 10 per cent milk fat is mandatory in sweetmeat. But in most cases, the percentage of milk fat is not more than five per cent. Condensed milk Three years after it first emerged that condensed milk produced by Bangladeshi manufacturers contained little or no milk and was in fact condensed vegetable fat, the companies are continuing to supply their spurious product to the market on the strength of a High Court stay order on legal action against them. Brands like Starship, Danish, Goalini and Kwality are mostly producing condensed milk, which do not satisfy the BDS 896: 1979 code of the Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute (BSTI), said Shamsuzzoha, Information officer of Consumers Association of Bangladesh - Bangladeshs only consumer rights group. From the test conducted by the Public Health Institute, it was found that these two brands have a bacterial count level of 76,000 and 25,000, respectively, he said. The maximum count of bacteria in a gram of condensed milk is 10,000. Despite the numerous test results, these brands continue to sell their adulterated products taking advantage of the fact that authorities tend to avoid their responsibilities at investigating such products and taking measures in ensuring consumer rights, he says. He explains that the BDS 896:1979 quality insists the need of actual cattle milk be condensed, mixed with sugar, then packaged and sold as condensed milk. According to the criteria, condensed milk should have a composition of 28 per cent solid milk, 8 per cent fat, 40 per cent sugar, 0.3 per cent lactic acid and count level below 10,000 bacteria in every gram of the milk.

The Milk and Dairy Product section committee of BSTI finalised the BDS standard for condensed milk on May 22, 1979. The quality was designed in accordance with the condensed milk manufacturing procedure discovered first by scientist Gail Borden in 1896. The committee had also kept in mind the necessity of the International Standards Organization (ISO) standards while formulating this particular standard. This standard was later approved by the Agriculture and Food Products Divisional Council of BSTI. These condensed milk lack the basic nourishing factors that natural milk has, said Zoha. He explained that natural milk consists of 80 to 90 per cent water. The rest includes protein, saturated fat, vitamin and calcium. The most important element is lactose, a special type of galactose that aids digestion in the human system, he explained. The other elements in milk are albumin, globulin, potassium, sodium, iodine and sulphur. All these elements make the consumption of a litre of milk equivalent to the consumption of 21 eggs, 12 kilograms of beef and 2.2 kilograms of bread by a human, he said. As most of these brands are using vegetable fat and powdered milk to produce condensed milk, consumers are missing out from the consumption of real condensed milk, he said. In a report published by CAB in December, 1995 it was found that Danish Condensed milk (Bangladesh) imports 125 metric tonne of powdered milk. When tested by the Bangladesh Atomic Energy commission it was found that the radioactivity levels in their milk is much higher than the stipulated limit. The high court verdict was against the sale and production of this powdered milk. We still cannot tell whether the company abided by the high court verdict, says one CAB official. Along with powdered milk, the brands are using Hoye powder, water, sugar, artificial colour, flavour and vegetable fat to produce condensed milk. Currently, 7,68,000 cans of condensed milk are sold daily. The daily demand shows the massive consumption of condensed milk and thus the immense health hazard being faced by the nation, says one CAB official

Sulphuric acid and industrial dyes

Some sweetmeat makers from rural areas are unaware of the existence of food colouring and use only industrial dyes in their products. The dough makers in different parts of the country put sulphuric acid in hot milk to make it thicken quickly. They first put a paste of ground rice into the milk, followed by sulphuric acid to turn the milk into a thick dough within minutes, say DCC officials.

In Dhaka City, famous sweetmeats brought from various parts of the country have been selling fast due to well-financed advertisement campaigns. Among these are Porabarir Chamcham, curds from Bogra, Rasogolla from Jessore, monda from Muktagachha, and Rosomalai from Comilla. In most cases, these sweetmeat are not what they seem, says Abdullah, a worker at a city sweetmeat outlet. Sources at the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute (BSTI) the government agency responsible for enforcing standards and issuing permits for the manufacture of processed foods admit that a wide variety of products such as soybean oil, butter oil and mustard oil are being sold in the market with fake BSTI seals. In recent weeks, laboratory reports have revealed that fruits are ripened artificially using calcium carbide while traces of organo-phosphorus an insecticide has been discovered in vegetables in kitchen markets. The nutritional elements that should be in fruits and vegetables, if adulterated with dyes and synthetic colours, are destroyed. Eventually the digestion of those poisonous fruits or vegetables may cause diarrhoea, dysentery and even death, says Professor Sagormoy Barma, a nutritionist at Dhaka University. The longterm impact of eating those foods is cancer, Barma warns. Meanwhile children are fast becoming the greatest casualty of the widespread adulteration. If children dont get the vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables to rebuild tissues, the result could be severe malnutrition says Professor MQK Talukder, a paediatrician at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH). The most terrifying thing that can happen for not enriching a childs body with the right nutritional elements are lack of growth and damage to central nervous system, Talukder says.

Formaldehyde
Ranked as one of the most hazardous compounds (worst 10%) to ecosystems and human health. Formaldehyde is a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling gas. It is an important industrial chemical used to manufacture building materials and to produce many household products. It is used in pressed wood products such as particleboard, plywood, and fiberboard, glues and adhesives, permanent press fabrics, paper product coatings, and certain insulation materials. In addition, formaldehyde is commonly used as an industrial fungicide, germicide, and disinfectant, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories. In 1987, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified formaldehyde as a probable human carcinogen under conditions of unusually high or prolonged exposure (1). Since that time, some studies of industrial workers have suggested that formaldehyde exposure is associated with nasal cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer, and possibly with leukemia. In 1995, the

International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that formaldehyde is a probable human carcinogen. Several NCI(National Cancer Institute, USA) studies have found that anatomists and embalmers, professions with potential exposure to formaldehyde, are at an increased risk for leukemia and brain cancer compared with the general population Mutagenic activity of formaldehyde has been demonstrated in viruses, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Salmonella typhimurium and certain strains of yeast, fungi, Drosophila, grasshopper and mammalian cells (Ulsamer et al., 1984). Formaldehyde has been shown to cause gene mutations, single strand breaks in DNA, DNA-protein crosslinks, sister chromatid exchanges and chromosomal aberrations. Formaldehyde produces in vitro transformation in BALB/c 3T3 mouse cells, BHK21 hamster cells and C3H-10Tl/2 mouse cells, enhances the transformation of Syrian hamster embryo cells by SA7 adenovirus, and inhibits DNA repair (Consensus Workshop on Formaldehyde, 1984). When inhaled, acetaldehyde, the closest aldehyde to formaldehyde in structure, causes cancers in the nose and trachea of hamsters, and nasal cancers in rats (EPA,USA, Carcinogenicity Assessment for Lifetime Exposure.Substance Name -- Formaldehyde,CASRN -- 50-00-0, Last Revised -- 05/01/1991. Do You Have Formaldehyde-Related Symptoms? There are several formaldehyde-related symptoms, such as watery eyes, runny nose, burning sensation in the eyes, nose, and throat, headaches and fatigue. These symptoms may also occur because of the common cold, the flu or other pollutants that may be present in the indoor air. If these symptoms lessen when you are away from home or office but reappear upon your return, they may be caused by indoor pollutants, including formaldehyde. Examine your environment. Have you recently moved into a new or different home or office? Have you recently remodeled or installed new cabinets or furniture? Symptoms may be due to formaldehyde exposure. You should contact your physician and/or state or local health department for help. Your physician can help to determine if the cause of your symptoms is formaldehyde or other pollutants.