Saturday, 7 June 2014

Adulterated food products






Recently, the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control, the regulatory agency in Nigeria, seized a truck-load of adulterated food products from the popular Idumota Market in Lagos. The items include baked beans, canned sardines, tomato ketchups and other processed foods.

Other products that were also confiscated include fake and substandard cosmetics and detergents used in household cleaning.
The list of the adulterated food items, confectionaries and cosmetics on display was endless and almost disconcerting.
Medical experts warn that one must take care not to fall victim of consuming counterfeit food products. This call for caution, they note, is not to stir unnecessary suspicion about products sold in the country, but to raise consumers’ awareness index on the fact that many food items and other consumables that we use daily in our homes have gotten the attention of counterfeiters.
“Consumption and use of adulterated products pose equal danger as the use of substandard and fake medicines,” they note.
Here are some food items that are mostly adulterated and the dangers they pose to our health.

Powdered milk
Powdered milk is one of the highest traded food commodities across the globe, according to studies by food analysts. Powdered milk is particularly significant for nursing mothers and their babies.
It is an ever booming business and counterfeiters are aware of it. It is used in infant formulas and baked goods. Even adults use it in their beverages; hence, people of all ages must be on the lookout when buying it.
Nutritionist, Dr. Tayo Ajayi, says studies have shown that some counterfeiters substitute some proteins in milk with chalk, salt and other whitish substances which can harm the body.
Ajayi states that consuming adulterated milk predisposes one to gastrointestinal diseases, a condition that can lead to stomach ulcers.
He explains, “Some children that took substandard and adulterated infant formulas died of diarrhoea and some other gastro-intestinal diseases. Mothers must watch out for this. Read the labels carefully, any spelling error should give the product away as fake. Don’t take it or don’t give it to your child.
Cooking oils
According to a 2013 Global Survey on Counterfeiting by the Food Drugs and Administration, United States, vegetable oils and other cooking oils such as olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, soya oil and palm oil are some of the most adulterated food products in history.
It is believed that more than 70 per cent of vegetable oils available in Nigeria have been doctored with questionable products.
Consultant cardiologist, Dr. Segun Akinsanya, says eating foods cooked with adulterated oils may increase one’s risks for coronary heart diseases and other cardiovascular diseases.
Akinsanya says, “Not only do you not get anything from taking them, they also harm your health. Adulterated oil is one that is not up to the acceptable standard. It has been doctored with other products for selfish gains.
“It is either they have not been refined enough, which means they are not safe; they still contain toxic chemicals in their harmful state. In some, it is that they have not been processed to the stage that makes it possible for the body to access its nutrients and benefits.
“So, you are just consuming junk in concentrated forms, which will later clog your arteries and blood vessels.”
It is not just heart diseases, cooking with adulterated oils can increase’s one’s risks for some cancers.
For instance, several studies have shown that the use of Red 24, a dye usually used in colouring plastics and waxes, is also used by oil producers to improve the colour of palm oil, a popular cooking oil in Nigerian. “It can be injurious to health,” Akinsanya warns.
Akinsanya adds, “Some even use chlorine, a bleaching agent, to bleach and change the colours of their cooking oils. Chlorine is a strong reaction with the walls of the stomach when ingested in these oils .Over time, it works to erode the walls of the stomach, causing peptic ulcer and other cancers of the stomach, depending on the quantity that is present in the stomach.”
Well, there are some tricks to knowing whether the oil you want to buy or the one you have been using is real or adulterated.
Akinsanya says the smell and taste of some oils quickly give them away to buyers who care to be observant.
“If it tastes crude and harsh, you should know it is not well refined. If it smells like petroleum, then know other substances have been added to it, and that is why it smells foul. Don’t buy it and if you are given, throw it out of the window,” he counsels.

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