Fruits and vegetables play an essential role in a healthy diet by serving as a source of phytonutrients such as carotenoids, cyclic compounds, indoles, polyphenols, and various other secondary metabolites as well as micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals assisting in performing multiple biological activities in day to day life.
Health advisors and dieticians insist on the consumption of a majority of these fruits and vegetables in raw form in order to retain the complete phytochemicals and nutrients profiles that are otherwise lost during cooking or other processes. Mental health can also be improved by consuming raw vegetables and fruits.
Even WHO also while emphasising on Food safety says ; Food safety, nutrition and food security are inextricably linked. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, particularly affecting infants, young children, elderly and the sick.
As of now we are cruising through a pandemic and therefore, besides the sanitization and hygiene, we must also be aware of other aspects related to Food safety, because only an aware citizen can fight and demand for his/ her rights ;
One. The sanitization /decontamination of vegetables and fruits is an important part of our food safety which needs to be taken care of, with utmost diligence as we consume these daily.
Unfortunatelly, in our country most of the citizens are neither aware of contamination in vegetables and fruits nor about the harm that they can cause. This is primarily, due to the lack of concern and indifference towards citizens' health by the govt machinery and social organizations.
Most of the Fruits and vegetables that we consume are highly contaminated with pesticides residual and heavy metals resulting in increased number of patients of cancer and other related diseases like Alzheimer, diabetes and reproductive problems.
One can easily estimate the amount of harmful pesticides that must be getting into our stomach/ digestive system annually when we look at the survey report conducted in 2019. It said ; An average Indian consumes approx 11.8 kg of Fruits ( Rural areas – 9.6 kg and Urban areas 15.6 kg) and 76.1 kg of vegetables( Rural areas 74.3 kgs and Urban areas – 79.1kgs). per year .
We need to be aware and careful while consuming – green chillies, cauliflower, cabbage, brinjal, tomatoes and coriander, as they are the most contaminated vegetables. Similarly, the most contaminated fruits are – banana, apples, grapes and exotic fruits. These have harmful pesticides residual and heavy metals like lead, nickel, copper beyond permissible limits that can also remain in our body for years and cause irreparable damage to our digestive/ nervous system.
Two. In order to ensure Food safety, the government has laid down some regulations and established regulatory bodies, like : Prevention of food adulteration act 1955 [PFA], Food safety and standard act 2006 [FSA] , Food safety and standard regulations 2010 [ FSSR] and off course the FSSAI (Food Safety and Standard Authority of India ) which is the main Regulatory Body for the enforcement of these laws.
Although, the Government has created the Rules and the Regulatory bodies like FSSAI which has laid down maximum residual limits {MRL} of all registered pesticides and insecticides, making it mandatory for all the producers of food products to comply with the laid down MRL and adhere to other rules established in PFA and FSSR, it has also appointed inspectors who have the authority to test products for the adherence to the MRL, But all these rules and bodies have grossly failed to serve the purpose, for which they were created.
This has happened primarily because very limited sampling and testing is done on fruits and vegetables, which are mostly contaminated beyond MRL of pesticides and insecticide and also because most of these tests samples are majorly drawn at the Retail supplier end - from sweet shops, grocery stores or restaurants and packaged food items.
In view of the above shortcomings we must together help in improving the national food system and the legal framework and implement adequate infrastructure to manage food safety risks. And as Martin Luther King once said ; Our lives begin to end the day we become silent to things that matter, our Health is surely a matter of importance that we cannot remain silent about… It concerns our own life, our children, our parents and our friends.
Author ; Mr Pankaj Bhatnagar has a huge experience behind him, having spent almost 40 years in the Food and Agriculture Industry. He has served the industry for such a long period that he is well aware of its nitty gritties and the problems/challenges that Indian agriculture and the farmers face, consequently he is able to provide a Holistic view of the various aspects that have an impact on Indian agriculture and Food industry.
DISCLAIMER
Views expressed above are the author's own