Talking Shop: What’s on Your Plate?

“The food you eat can be

either the safest and most

powerful medicine, or the

slowest form of poison.”

— Ann Wigmore

Clint Eastwood is famous for his repartee, and once said on BBC that every person knows when he is “on key or off key, as people scowl and grimace when you are having a bad day”. The crisis in India, predominantly from the gastronomic perspective, is off-key every day now. People are unaware of the discord invading their bodies, and a billion increasingly quality-conscious people are pushing all manner of vile things down their gullet. If you disagree, explain why the rich are eating paint, licking bleach and talcum powder, and biting into shampoos and urea. It may be apt to end this opening with a telling quote by Eastwood: “What you put into life is what you get out of it.” Touché.

We could call it ‘The Culinary Horror Show’, or nonchalantly pop an innocuous question: “What’s in your glass and on your plate?” After all, be it a creamy glass of milk, a crisp apple, a spoonful of honey or a dollop of butter, our daily comfort food comes armed with secret appetizers and ingredients, if only to add extra zest and zing. There are paint and chalk powder in milk, detergent in cheese, a touch of urea in your fruit, and a fragrant shampoo in your paneer (cottage cheese). Bon appétit.

India, revered as the land of spices and diversity, is now also the ‘hub of adulterated food’. While we continue to call our cuisine world-class, what lurks beneath the outer garnish is less Michelin-starred and more chemical-lab gone wrong. Your daily bread, milk and even honey are now seasoned with greed, and more than a dash of toxic chemicals for good measure.

India has truly evolved

Gone are the days when food adulteration was just about mixing water in milk; we have now evolved; we go the extra mile and add chalk powder, urea, detergents and even paints to food items to satisfy our cravings, notably maximizing profits too while on this gourmet expedition. Some new dishes have been created along the way, clustered under the head of the ‘Great Indian Milkshake’. And yes, instead of using the done-to-death tagline of ‘chemical-free’, we now proudly proclaim ‘Chemicals are Free’. On this expedition, greed now stars on the main course, while health risks are just a side dish, one that no one really talks or cares about.

For those who wag a disagreeing finger at this disrespect to Indian longevity, we need to remind them that Indian milk is the perfect food, rich in calcium, protein and formalin. Formalin, incidentally, is the very chemical that’s used to preserve dead bodies, and we have found a unique way to introduce that into our beloved milk. We also go the extra mile and add a further dash of urea and detergent, which gives our milk a thick, creamy texture and keeps it foamy. Sure, these two ingredients are as good for your bones as sandpaper is for your skin, but who’s keeping tabs?

According to a report by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), 68.7 per cent of tested milk samples did not meet required standards, with chemicals like hydrogen peroxide, urea and paint being added to the mix. Paint! The obvious question here isn’t whether you are drinking milk or whitewash, it’s whether your stomach is stronger than the average wall.

Cheese, paneer and soap

This is India’s latest and hottest recipe, no less. Paneer, the pride of vegetarians, is a star in kitchens, but few know that it could also win awards in the detergent category. Some paneer-aficionados now use caustic soda and / or shampoo to increase the volume and thickness of the cheese. Therefore, do not fret if your Paneer Butter Masala looks and tastes a little too ‘clean’ the next time. After all, you are eating soap and fresh paint. A study by the Consumer Guidance Society of India found that 40 per cent of paneer samples it tested contained starch and additives like chemicals typically used in cleaning products. There lies your very own contribution to chemistry – while you cook a delicious paneer curry, you are also running a little science experiment in your kitchen.

Soliloquy: The last time I ate a piece of paneer, it tasted like a bubble bath. Maybe the next time I jump into the shower or scrub my floors, I will first make paneer curry. Who wouldn’t like squeaky-clean floors, or squeaky-clean me?

India uses the term ‘pure honey’ so often that I find it rib-tickling. Our pure and organic ‘straight from the bee’ nectar is being conjured up in laboratories, with the humble bee banished, long replaced by flashier creators and ingredients. Most labs now see Mr Hyde running the show, with a repressed and close-jacketed Dr Jekyll watching his alter ego excel with beakers and pipette. The culmination of this experiment with money lust sees adulteration being rampant, with many mixing glucose, sugar syrups and high-fructose corn syrup into honey. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) revealed that 77 per cent of honey samples from top Indian brands failed purity tests. It’s no longer about whether honey is good for health; it’s about whether honey is honey at all.

Bounty of fruits & veggies

Fruits and vegetables are the backbone of a healthy diet, my mom told me when I was little. Well, I am still little (sic), and can tell her that this holds true today only if she considers pesticides, growth hormones and industrial-grade chemicals to be part of a healthy diet too. Today’s fruits and vegetables are being doused in pesticides and fertilizers, with growth-inducers also being affectionately used to make fruits larger and shinier. Well, they are larger, they are shinier, and they are deadly.

A study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) reveals that over 50 per cent of fruits and vegetables sold in India contain pesticide residues beyond permissible limits. Ever seen an apple so shiny that you can see your reflection in it? That’s not nature’s work, that’s another Dr Jekyll in a lab somewhere in the mountains, with chemical-boosters in one hand and his cheque book in the other.

Soliloquy: I once picked up a tomato so big and red it looked like it was on steroids. I was very, very careful while chopping it, lest it exploded and red chemicals doused me – a scene from a sci-fi movie.

It’s not just milk and vegetables that are being chemically-enhanced. Pulses, grains and other food items are being ‘given superpowers’ to increase protein content and shelf-life. As we are talking proteins, get a load of this – urea is a chemical compound used as a fertilizer, and sometimes also in explosives (to make things that go ‘boom’). That’s all your innocent apple, tomato and mango are trying – to make you go ‘boom’. Lighter note aside, adulteration is so dangerous that many of us are literal ticking time-bombs.

Soliloquy: My neighbour is also a proud farmer. He boasted to me last week that his apples were bigger than ever, thanks to “a bit of urea”. I advised him to keep them in a TNT-proof container.

Thunder and lightning

What’s horrifying about this adulteration saga is no one seems to care. From cancer to kidney failure, these toxic concoctions are killing people, with food poisoning now often resulting in death. While the public suffers, the food industry majors continue to thrive, driven by what can only be greed that has made them turn our plates into petri dishes. One could live with it (maybe) if it were just street vendors and small sellers doing this, but even big brands are now guilty of adding chemicals to boost profits. All I can ask of my toxin-eating brothers and sisters is that they stay informed and demand better. In today’s food industry, the challenge isn’t what to eat, it’s deciding whether it’s safe to eat at all.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal