HUMANS AS LIVING DUMPING GROUND
- Hindu College Gazette Web Team
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Humans have been living on the earth for more than fifty thousand years, and the expense of living has never felt so expensive. Countries like India, where dietary habits are diverse and regional, are lagging in providing basic, healthy, and nutrient-rich foods to their people. Living a healthy life is a luxury and something that is only afforded by the privileged. Packaged food becomes a cheaper option for the commoner to fill their stomach rather than going for a fruit salad. The same goes for veganism.
More and more people are becoming lactose intolerant in a country where the diet of toddlers to that of a senior citizen's diet is enriched with ghee, milk and dairy products. For Indians, cows are sacred, and the milk provided by them is a boon and a basic need for them. An Indian’s evening is incomplete without chai. But even then, the expense of this basic necessity is not affordable to many. The FSSAI is incapable of taking proper regulatory action regarding the food served to its people. Highly adulterated versions of Paneer are being circulated in the market, which fail all the safety tests and are still being sold and consumed by locals. Even some of the packaged company Paneers failed the test. It becomes FSSAI’s responsibility to carry a proper check and balance system regularly. FSSAI, as a regulatory body, has weak implementations on the ground levels, creating delays in standards and approvals. Audits of CAG have previously recorded that there are shortages of laboratories and vacancies for staff positions. This is often ignored and not discussed in the parliament sessions.
The Global Hunger Index keeps India in the bottom positions in the world, reflecting stunting and undernourishment. According to SOFI by the UN’s FAO, India has the highest child wasting rates. A ten-rupee samosa made in dirty oil is served recklessly on the streets without any regulation, which can be ignored for a second because we don’t know whether it's made in good oil or not, but how can someone ignore the ingredient list of packaged foods? The colour agents and preserving agents in these packaged foods, which are banned in most countries, find their market in India. Are we Indians immune to these harmful agents or what?
We as people don’t want to compensate with our taste and palate. We always prefer to fill our appetite with tasty food rather than healthy food. India is on verge of becoming the new America, where obesity is a major concern. These lifestyle diseases are taking shape and evolving into new forms of illness . Being healthy is becoming too expensive for an Indian household. Even if a person starts consuming one apple a day, the monthly expense for that apple would be around eight hundred rupees, and when we add the expense of milk, the total expense could reach twelve hundred rupees.
Health and education are the two most important concerns for a country. But Marx has correctly said, “The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society”. A recent case where a doctor named Shivaranjani Santosh was fighting against the manufacturing and marketing of sugary drinks and marketing in the name of ORS. The FSSAI banned the use of “ORS” in product names unless they strictly follow the WHO rules. Just after the notification, a company asked the authority to uphold the ban as they had already manufactured a large quantity of the product, and they needed a market to sell those. In response to this Delhi High Court gave a decision in support of that company, although they refused to allow them later. For the companies, they will always prioritise money over people.
There are various preservatives in circulation in the Indian Market which are banned in all the developed countries. India provides a huge market for these very preservatives among all the countries in the Global South due to its massive population. Even the healthy claimed items are not at all good for health and the gut. The Protein Powder supplements given to people who work out for their physique are also found not to be up to the claims they make. They lack nutrients and have a high number of amino acids, along with the presence of high metals above permissible limits. The steroid contamination has created a big loophole in the protein supplement market.
Social media has been playing a crucial role too, after the covid pandemic. For a single health-related piece of information, people prefer consulting Facebook and Instagram reels before going to a doctor and taking proper medication. If an influencer says muesli is a healthy breakfast rich in fibre and nutrients, which a homemade food lacks, they trust it blindly and reach out to their nearest shop to purchase one, ignoring the fact that how much sugar is used in those packets to make it addictive and enhance its taste for the Indian palate.
The Indian Household Thali is not what we want to eat, but what the state and capitalists want us to consume. Initially, millets used to be eaten in tribal homes and in rural parts, and urban people used to eat wheat and rice, but now the roles are reversed. The elite have a diet including millets rich in fibre, while the rest are left with carbs only in the form of rice and wheat. The state decides the MSPs of the crops produced with a plan to generate surplus for export, and therefore, farmers find rice and wheat more beneficial than a fibre-rich crop. The millets have comparatively more drought tolerance than these carb-rich crops, but even then, farmers prefer taking risks. The third advance estimates for crop production published by the Government of India itself support the above arguments statistically.
Urbanisation and the sedentary lifestyle of people make it more difficult to remain fit and healthy. Previously, people used to go shopping for vegetables and other groceries, and while doing that, they walked a little bit and maintained their step count. Now everything is at their hand, what one needs to do is scroll the phone and with just a tap, everything is at your door. In this pampered world, for one to maintain their step count has to take out extra time from their schedule, which was never the case before. Mental well-being, which was once nurtured through social interactions and gathering, has gradually declined. Now people pay for the counselling sessions where they pay simply to talk openly.
Sugar is becoming the new alcohol in the market. Even kids are now diagnosed with diabetes, which should be a major concern. Indian Council of Medical Research’s national study reported that India has around 95,600 children under 14 years of age with Type 1 diabetes. A peer reviewed study which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association analyses that India records the highest number of childhood diabetes cases and deaths in the world in 2019. Type 2 diabetes develops out of a poor lifestyle, accounting for ninety per cent of the total diabetic patients, while on the other hand, Type 1 is only about five per cent. The sugar consumption releases instant dopamine, which makes us happy, and gradually, it takes the shape of a habit that is hard to break or impossible to break most of the time.
Awareness is the key to everything. Masses are unaware of the hazards of these food habits and dietary practices. The government should try to make nutrient-rich food affordable for all sections, and awareness campaigns should be encouraged regarding it. The FSSAI body has to gear up and take the proper actions needed. Companies and Capitalists here come into the frame, and rather than working on just money and marketing every single thing for profit should think twice before manufacturing the product. India is a market and not a dumping ground.
By Prakriti Prerna
Prakriti Prerna is a final year student at Kamla Nehru College, University of Delhi. She finds comfort and curiosity in books and is always drawn to stories that reflect human emotions, histories and ideas. She enjoys observing social realities and questioning them with empathy and awareness. She is an optimist who believes in change and growth.
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