Fruits aplenty but taste, flavour gone

Indiscriminate use of chemicals in ripening blamed
Ripe jackfruit, pineapple, papaya or mango–all fruits flooding the city markets look great but lack usual scent and taste as traders use chemical compounds to ripen them artificially, posing a serious health risk to the consumers.
Sources said fruit growers and traders are using different harmful chemicals including growth hormone, insecticides and other chemicals like carbide and formaline in the fruits from the orchard to market for making quick cash.
Carbide, a chemical compound used for manufacturing dry cell batteries, is now being used in mango, banana and papaya for bringing colour.
“A couple of days ago, my husband bought a jackfruit which was soft like a ripe one. But we could not eat it because it was totally tasteless and stinky. I guess it was artificially ripened,” said a housewife from Mirpur when asked about the seasonal fruits.
Besides the seasonal fruits, traders also use formaline in imported fruits like grape and apples to keep them fresh for long.
Sources said carbide, copper sulphate, different kinds of textile dyes and pesticides are very popular among the food traders and growers.
These chemicals are harmful to human health. They cause diseases of kidney, liver and even might cause cancer if consumed for long. Children are the worst victims of this practice.
“It’s stunning to think of the unscrupulous practice of the businessmen. Does the government have any responsibility to protect the next generation?” questioned Sharmin Islam, a resident of Elephant Road. She is quite worried about the health of her two-year-old daughter as these fruits and vegetables are not safe for the baby.
Children are the worst sufferers of these toxic elements as their immune system is comparatively weak, said National Professor and eminent child specialist MR Khan. These chemicals create toxicity in their livers and those who are working in food departments should have to be more pro-active to stop such bad practice, he added.
If carbide is used in those green fruits, within a very short time the fruits will take a ripe look. The fact is that the fruits look ripe from outside but they remain unripe and the nutrition value of those fruits reduces to a great extent, experts say.
Not to speak of fruits, green vegetables also pose serious health hazards due to overuse of pesticides.
Fruits and vegetables should not be consumed within two weeks after the use of pesticide. But those fruits and vegetables reach the consumers almost immediately after use of pesticides.
If consumed for long time, these increase acid secretion from the stomach wall and lead to digestion problems, acidity and ulcer, and finally intestine and liver cancer also, said Prof ABM Faroque of the department of Pharmaceutical Technology of Dhaka University.
Experts suggested using organic pesticides and more research in this regard.
Earlier, the government launched a year-long mobile courts drive in the city to stop food adulteration following a series of reports published in print media.
But now no government authorities seem to be oblivious of the problem. Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute (BSTI) only deals with the products made in factories or by industrial process. But there are many other agricultural products that are being artificially coloured and mixed with chemicals.
Though the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) is supposed to visit and test the quality of food sold in city markets, it has no mechanism to test the hazardous chemicals in food.
There is no specific law to test the fruits and vegetables that is sold in city markets, said Chief Health Officer of DCC Colonel Shawkat Ali to The Daily Star. Besides, the laboratory facilities are not enough to test those items, he added.
“The unscrupulous businessmen are now more sophisticated and our capacity and legal aptitude are too inadequate to challenge them,” he said, adding that it is not possible for 20 DCC inspectors to visit 90 wards of the capital and pick up samples for testing.
However, it is good that the government is going to implement a project titled ‘Public and Environmental Health’ worth of Tk 120 million with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) by 2010 to tackle the issues, he added.

Courtesy of The Daily Star