A REPORT in a national daily on Sunday said 87 percent of the edible oil in the market is adulterated poising threat to public health. Laboratory test of least 400 samples from brands and non-brands packages by Institute of Public Health (IPH) showed the presence of high adulteration in those samples. What appears highly alarming is that the adulteration is noticeable in all edible oil brands like soya bean, mustard, palm, sunflower and coconut oil. Since it is a big threat to public health, it is highly advisable that quality and marketing of the edible oil need to be strictly monitored so that consumers can use pure and quality edible oil in food to remain healthy.
The demand for edible oil in the country varies between 18 and 20 lakh tons at the moment of which 2 to 4 lakh tons are supplied from local sources. The remaining comes from import mostly in the crude form. But importers usually don’t properly purify it in the mills working in haste to spend less money in refining to earn huge profit by supplying market with poorly purified edible oils; this is what the test report reaffirmed.
The quality test by Food Safety Laboratory of IPH has mainly identified the level of free fatty acid in the samples. It found the presence of toxic substances in bottled soya bean oil was higher than the permitted limit of 2 percent. In unpacked soya bean oil, toxic substance varied from 2.6 to 3 percent. The accepted free fatty acid in mustard oil was 1.25 per cent where in 10 out of 19 samples it was recorded from 1.3 to 2 per cent. Toxic acid in 4 out of 17 samples of coconut oil was high. It was also high in rice bran oil, palm oil and olive oil. Adulterated edible is just slowly poisoning consumers causing indigestion, gastritis, loss of appetite and coronary lesions that lead to slow death. Degrading soybean oil may cause hypertension, diabetes and abnormal obesity
Needless to say, the high adulteration level in edible oil usually results from poor milling of imported crude oil. The business is hostage in the hand of powerful syndicates who control imports and marketing. They are less bothered to sell standard edible oil that may add cost to milling. Since influential political quarters are involved in the business, quality control and price monitoring are almost absent. So people are eating sub-standard edible oil and also paying exorbitant price which is around twice of the import price as per some reports.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina talks of her readiness of personal sacrifice. We do not want her to sacrifice anything. She should reassure the nation about her government’s ability to protecting their health or otherwise.
