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| A Sri Lankan carpenter carries a stock of unfinished wooden cricket bats outside a roadside factory in Colombo's suburban Mortatuwa area on February 22, 2011. Bats are in demand at this small factory in cricket-mad Sri Lanka, where the home team are touted as one of the favourites to win the ongoing 2011 cricket World Cup. Sri Lanka, 1996 winners and 2007 runners-up, are co-hosting the tournament with India and Bangladesh. -Getty Image |
by Milinda Rajasekera
(February 24, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The authorities have acted with commendable swiftness after the death of a young girl who had consumed a drink from a bottle of soft drinks. Media reports said that the police immediately raided the shop that sold the soft drink bottle to the girl’s father. This shop that had allegedly sold soft-drink bottles with elapsed expiry dates has now been prohibited from selling the item. This indeed is not the first time that people in this country have suffered such serious consequences after eating or drinking stale or contaminated consumer items.
Unscrupulous people feeding unhygienic food to the public is a complex and complicated problem. Today, food production and distribution is big business that causes enormous administrative difficulties and poses serious threats to people’s health and problems to healthcare services. Problems have become further intractable with the intense commercialization of the enterprise by big companies taking over the role of production, manufacture and supply of food to the people. The basis of their policy as explained long time ago by Adam Smith remains the same. “It is not from benevolence of the butcher, the brewer and the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” stated Adam Smith.
The methods and ploys adopted by the highest and the lowest in this business are many and varied. They tend to do whatever they could lay their hands on to minimize expenditure and maximize profit. The continuous flow into the market of adulterated consumer products, unhygienic items of food, substandard goods is the result of their activities. Some of the methods used at multi-star hotels, eateries, snack bars and other places where food is served have been exposed in recent raids conducted by the authorities. The public are now being made aware that the dirty and awful conditions under which the food is prepared are in striking contrast to the salubrious surroundings in which food is served to consumers.
It is not indeed easy to bring this situation under control however extensive the raids conducted are. The owners of these places may be taken to courts and fined but it would not prevent them from coming back to business. Stringent laws and preventive measures are necessary. The process of law enforcement also presents problems since those involved are not adequately insulated against corrupt practices. Innovative measures have to be introduced to make it impossible for unscrupulous persons to indulge in unfair trade practices. If the preparation of food is brought out from the secrecy of the kitchen into the public gaze at eating places, the consumers would know what they are served with. Laws are required to make this proposal effective.
Public awareness and their greater involvement in the effective implementation of measures adopted by the authorities to ensure the protection of consumers are of the highest importance. Since children need special protection particularly from consumption of unhygienic food and drinks, their parents have to take extra care about what they eat and drink both at home and in their schools. It is commendable, in this context, that the Education Ministry has issued circulars giving strict guidelines on the sale of fast food in school canteens warning that legal action would be taken against principals and teachers if such food continues to be sold in any school.
These circulars have set out the kind of food that could be served and what should be excluded. The authorities have stressed the importance of switching over to indigenous items from junk food and soft drinks which have a high content of fat and sugar. This step, though laudable, would present problems to the school authorities. They would find it difficult to get proper people to supply the approved items. The authorities therefore have to provide the required facilities and assistance to implement the guidelines.
Meanwhile, quick and effective action has to be taken to eliminate the fraternity of peripatetic vendors who sell items of food and drinks in the vicinity of schools. Children are seen running to them and consuming these items kept exposed to elements during intervals or after school hours. These vendors have to be either debarred from such places or persuaded to sell good food and drinks. Vigilance of both parents and authorities is essential, in this respect, to protect the children against various ailments that are caused by the consumption of bad food and drinks.
Whether children or adults, it is in the interest of all and in the national interest to ensure that people are supplied with healthful food and drinks because it is clearly evident that the causes of most ailments that people suffer from could be traced to consumption of food and drinks containing ingredients injurious to people’s health. Most such items do not produce immediate consequences but the continuous consumption of these items causes a variety of bodily ailments in a gradual process.
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