Our daily bread

Barely had the citizenry of this country got over the shock of having eaten a particular variety of convenient noodles for decades, along comes another scare. Your bread may be less than safe. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has come out with findings that breads sold by most popular brands contain potentially cancer-causing chemicals that help bake the loaf better. First we need to know how much damage have we done to our bodies already. Perhaps not much, for the simple reason that bread is not a staple for most Indians. Also, the chemicals are only ‘possibly carcinogenic’. They are not banned in India, or the US and most other countries; though these are proscribed in Europe and a few other countries. That, of course, does not mean that we may continue to eat these suspected chemicals.

A knee-jerky government has immediately announced its decision to ban one of the two chemicals against which it already had a negative input but had not acted thus far. This is curious, because either the decision now is without due consideration or there was a deliberate lapse in not issuing the ban earlier. Why wait for the CSE report? Just as the Maggi episode, the latest revelation too has shown up the lack of regulations and a regulatory mechanism. Even if the chemicals were not banned in India, they had to be mentioned in the ingredients, which only one brand did.

Often such revelations evoke a wave of concern from consumers to the government, but soon the excitement fades away without a trace. The reason is the same as what allowed the violations in the first place. We have yet to rise above the more existential challenges of providing food to adequately fill every belly. The quality of that food, the nutritional balance or appointing enough regulatory staff are secondary considerations. But as we begin to take pride in our accomplishments from the economy to the space industry, it is about time we find the competence and the diligence to ensure that what we eat is safe and healthy.