Hello, friends! Smoking and drinking are injurious to our health. We know this.
These can cause deadly diseases like c@ncer. Increase the chances of getting a heart attack. But, now, in New India, wanting to add some flavour to your food, has become injurious to your health.
On 5th April, 2024, Hong Kong's Food Safety Centre issued the first notification. They named 3 spice mixes from MDH. Madras Curry Powder, Curry Powder, and Sambhar Masala.
And a spice mix from Everest, their Fish Curry Masala. These contained dangerously high levels of ethylene oxide. Consuming this chemical has been directly linked to c@ncer.
In many countries, using it is completely banned. Singapore's Food Agency conducted independent testing, and found this in Everest's Fish Curry Masala. As of 4th May, 2024, the day I'm shooting this video, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Maldives have banned these spice mixes in their countries.
Australia, New Zealand, and Nepal's food agencies are testing these independently, soon they may be banned in these countries too. But this isn't the end of the story. When it was analysed further, it was revealed that In the last 4 years, European Union's Food Safety Authorities have either banned or recalled more than 500 Indian products.
527 such products that contained ethylene oxide. Not only spice mixes, everything is included in this list. Nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, cereals, fruits, vegetables, flavours, ice cream, thickeners, and many more.
Not only this, in the past 6 months, the spices and spice mixes exported by MDH to America, the US Customs authorities have sent back 31% of them. Citing that traces of Salmonella was found in them. This bacteria causes food poisoning.
Diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and in severe cases, it can harm a person's nervous system too. This is a critical situation, but we find out about such news only because the authorities of foreign countries are doing their work properly. While in our country, it isn't talked about on TV channels, neither did our government issue any warnings.
Far from issuing warnings. last month, the Modi government, increased the permissible pesticide levels by 10 times. The level of pesticide that is allowed to be present in food, was increased 10 times.
They are playing with the lives of 1. 4 billion people. This isn't about a few spice mixes.
This is much more dangerous than it seems. Come, in this video, let's understand this in-depth, which are the chemicals found in foodstuff, why are they there, what are the reasons for this, and what can you do to protect yourself? Before beginning this video, let me clarify something.
Before someone asks why do I always bring our government into such matters, because they think that the government is blameless, there is absolutely no doubt that the entire responsibility falls on the government. When Everest was asked the reason their products were declared unsafe, what did they say? That they had received the necessary clearances and approvals by the Spice Board.
What is the Spice Board of India? Indian Government's regulatory authority that falls under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Apart from this, whether our food contain c@ncerous chemicals or not, FSSAI is supposed to investigate that.
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, that falls under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This isn't limited to our country only. Other countries' food authorities fall under their governments too.
But at least those countries are trying to protect their citizens. At the very least, they are warning their citizens about unsafe food, and the products that they need to stay away from. While our government did not dare utter a word about it.
The only response from the FSSAI is that they need 20 days to test these spice mixes. Only then will they declare whether these are harmful or not. They need 20 days to do this.
While a common citizen has already tested these, and received the test results within a few days. "FSSAI is the unit that asked for 20 days to tell us whether this contains ethylene oxide or not. " "My question to the FSSAI is that if within 4 days I can find out the level of ethylene oxide in it, why do you need 20 days?
" Look at this report. A Twitter user decided that they will send Everest's Fish Curry Masala for testing, They sent it to the Food Hygiene and Health Laboratory. On 23rd April, he sent a sample of this spice mix weighing 50g, and by 26th April the report had come in.
What was the result? This spice mix contains ethylene oxide in the concentration of 7. 57 milligram per kilogram.
But the maximum permissible limit is 0. 1 milligram per kilogram. This c@ncer-causing chemical exceeded the permissible limit by 70 times.
Some people give excuses that this is a global conspiracy to oust the Modi Government, they question why did this news break out right before the elections. The news didn't break out right before the election. It has been developing for a long time.
The problem is that the TV channels aren't telling you about it. Between October 2022 and September 2023, America rejected 15% of MDH's products. As I told you, from 2020 to the present day, the European Union has rejected or banned 527 Indian products.
But if you don't believe those countries, take a look at this report. This was tested by an Indian at an Indian laboratory. If you have understood the seriousness of this issue, come, let's talk a little about this chemical, Ethylene Oxide.
Its short form is EO or EtO. It is a byproduct of fossil fuels, and has numerous industrial uses. But the use which is relevant in this matter, is the fumigation of spices.
The word Fumigation means disinfecting or sterilising. K! lling the harmful micro-organisms and bacteria in food.
Ethylene oxide is used as a gas. Because gas flows through the packaging materials very easily. And it can be used in an easily and efficiently to disinfect things.
This is a colourless gas so you won't see it, but it is flammable. It can catch fire. This is useful in k!
lling harmful bacteria like E-Coli and Salmonella. It can also be used to get rid of fungus. But interestingly, this isn't used during production.
It is used only during the storage stage. So if there's high levels of ethylene oxide in the spices, the farmer growing the crops isn't at fault. Rather, it is the company's responsibility, that uses ethylene oxide during post-harvest treatment and before packaging.
The problem arises during storage. You can see this simple flowchart on the screen, it shows the various processes that are involved in the sterilisation of ethylene oxide. First of all, there's Preconditioning, that checks the humidity, temperature, and pressure control.
Then this gas is used for sterilisation, followed by gas evacuation and gas washing. The third process is known as Aeration. This is an important step.
Because, in this step, this chemical is removed from the product. Nitrogen injections and vacuum degassing are used to remove this gas. This is crucial because this step is the root of the problem.
If the food is sterilised of EtO, but the aeration isn't properly executed, the traces of this chemical would remain in the food. This can lead to the formation of other lethal chemical compositions. like 2-Chloroethanol, Ethylene Chlorodydrin, or Ethylene Glycol, these are the same lethal chemicals that were found in the cough syrups.
I talked about it in the Pharma Files video. The cough syrup that led to the de@ths of children in Uzbekistan. This is why International Agency for Research on Cancer, categorises ethylene oxide into Group 1 Carcinogen.
They have 4 groups for classification. Group 1 lists the things that cause c@ncer in humans for sure. Group 2 lists things that probably give c@ncer to humans.
Group 2B lists things that can possibly cause c@ncer among people, and the Group 3 carcinogens are non-classified. So the things in Group 1 are the most dangerous. You can see the list of chemicals in Group 1.
It includes several things, like coal, tobacco, aluminium production, exhaust from d! esel engines, and one of these entries lists ethylene oxide. It's also said that even low levels of ethylene oxide increases the risk of lymphohematopoietic c@ncer and breast c@ncer.
If you inhale this gas, it can cause permanent mutations to your cellular materials. And this can be passed on to your future generations. This is why the European Union has a zero tolerance policy for ethylene oxide.
Not only have they completely banned ethylene oxide in European countries, but they have also banned ethylene oxide in imported products. There was a small change to this policy in 2003, when they noticed that the risk of microbial contamination is quite high among imported food. Based on this, they allowed small traces of ethylene oxide in food.
They defined the maximum residual limit of 0. 2 milligrams per kilogram. So EtO is allowed within this limit, but not more than this.
But this limit was further reduced in 2022. The new limit was reduced to 0. 1 milligram per kilogram.
So this is the acceptable EtO limit in Europe, and only for the imported products. EtO is still completely banned for any European production process. Last year, in April 2023, the changed EtO's classification, instead of calling it a fumigant, it is now labelled as Pesticide Residue.
This change in definition meant that it became mandatory for every European country, to test their food samples for EtO. In Singapore, the maximum allowed limit of ethylene oxide is much higher than that of Europe, 50 milligram per kilogram. There EtO is allowed to be used for fumigation, but the limit is 500 times that of Europe.
Even so, when they tested Everest's Fish Curry Masala, they found that this chemical exceeded their permissible limit. In Hong Kong, the regulations are stricter than that of Singapore. Not only do they consider EtO to be a pesticide, they don't allow it to be used even for fumigation, and neither as a pesticide.
If there's any violation regarding food quality in Hong Kong, it can draw fines of up to $50,000 and imprisonment for 6 months. If these facts are causing you some tension, and you're worried about the harmful things or chemicals in our food, don't worry too much about it. An AI tool like ChatGPT can help you with this.
Check the ingred! ent lists of any food item, and you can ask ChatGPT about any ingred! ent.
For example, Potassium Bromate that is used in many breads. Ask if potassium bromate is bad for human health, and if it is banned in any country, you will clearly see that it has been banned in some places, including Europe and Canada, but it is still allowed in America. And that it is detrimental to health.
If you don't want to ask about the ingred! ents one by one, then you can simply give it the photo of the ingred! ent list.
And ask ChatGPT if any of the ingred! ents are unhealthy. You will get an excellent breakdown as you can see on the screen.
ChatGPT will be immensely useful in your daily life for such things. Normally, if you try to search these on Google, it will take you hours to find the answer. This is why I have a 5.
5-hours-long Master ChatGPT course on Dhruv Rathee Academy. In your stud! es, work, or daily life, you can speed up every task with ChatGPT.
I add regular updates to this course. The next update will be added in June 2024. If you haven't joined it yet, You can use the link given in the description or you can scan this QR code.
Use the coupon code FOOD40 to get 40% off. I'd like to add one more thing, if ChatGPT's subscription seems expensive to you, try this app, Ginni AI. It offers the same performance and features available in ChatGPT, but it is available at half the price of ChatGPT.
They offer Photo Chat and PDF Chat too. You can add a pic of the ingred! ent list with your question and it will give you the same answer.
The link is in the description. And let us get back to the topic. Despite all this, Everest's director, Rajiv Shah claims that EtO is found only in 1 of their 60 products.
The other spices are safe to consume. On the other hand, MDH also claims that their products are safe and can be consumed. But do you know what, friends, it isn't about ethylene oxide only.
as I mentioned at the beginning of the video. the MDH shipments that were rejected in America, was because of Salmonella. It is ironic that EtO is used to k!
ll bacteria like Salmonella. Some products have high levels of EtO, while some are contaminated by Salmonella. US's FDA revealed that between October 2022 and September 2023, 15% of MDH spices imported into America, were refused due to Salmonella.
But over the next period, from October 2023 to the present day, the rate of rejection is at 31%. In total, 11 shipments have been rejected, which contained spices, flavours, and salts by MDH. Here, 1 shipment doesn't mean only one product, 1 shipment may refer to 1 carton, 1 truckload, or an entire shipping container.
According to the Outlook article, in January 2022, US FDA conducted a physical investigation of MDH's manufacturing plant in India. Back then the threat wasn't this severe, but the FDA had noted that the plant lacked adequate sanitary and accommodation facilities. The exact quote is that "the equipment and utensils at the plant were not designed or constructed to be properly cleaned or maintained to prevent contamination.
" This isn't limited to MDH's products. Between Financial Years 2020 and 2023, America rejected 786 shipments from India. A total of 3,925 human food export shipments were sent from India to the US.
Of which 20% were rejected due to Salmonella. This wasn't limited to spices. It included vitamins, minerals, proteins, bakery products as well as seafood products.
Read the headline of this article. Any shipment from India has 7 times higher chance of being rejected, as compared to a Chinese shipment. The standards of our country have fallen so low.
This isn't limited to ethylene oxide or Salmonella. Look at this news from last year. 14 November 2023, the European Commission sounded alarm about turmeric imported from India.
A lethal pesticide Chlorpyrifos was found in it. This pesticide is banned across many countries because of adverse effect on children's brain growth. This is why I'm saying that this problem is much bigger than a few spices.
This has been going on for several years. In Europe, the alarm bells were rung in 2020 by Belgium, when ethylene oxide was found in Indian sesame seeds. Since then, it has been found in so many products.
Cereals, chocolates, biscuits, bread, crackers, spices, and even in the animal feed of farm animals, was contaminated with it. It was only after this Belgium incident that the European Food Safety Agency started taking Indian imported food seriously. They have an information network, European Rapid Alert System for Food And Feed also known as RASFF, their data is publicly available.
So you can go on their website and check it for yourself. Between March 2019 and March 2024, there have been 985 RASFF notifications regarding Indian imports that have been filed under the serious category. This isn't a nexus.
This is a system to ensure the safety of European citizens. They try to spread awareness among people about what they consume. I have added the link to the website in the description below, go check it out, and look at some examples on the screen.
Notifications from May 2022 and April 2022, cumin and fenugreek were contaminated with Chlorpyrifos pesticide. Finland rejected it at the border. And the Netherlands issued alerts regarding this.
Both were filed under Serious classification. You can use the Search function on their website, to look up various products, like Aflatoxins were found in peanut butter, groundnut, and rice imported from India. Salmonella was found in sesame seeds, onion powder, and betel leaves from India.
Harmful chemicals like mercury and lead were found in Ayurvedic products imported from India. You can scroll further to check out the details of the notifications to see the exact amount of these toxins. Thankfully, we still have the judiciary in our country that is functioning independently to some extent.
Recently it has tightened the reins, otherwise our Health Ministry and the FSSAI, had given free rein. They were allowed to do any sort of false advertisements. Do you remember that our government banned Maggi in 2015, because of traces of MSG?
Just after this, Patanjali Noodles were launched all across the country. But now when so many Indian products have been banned globally, our government doesn't have anything to say. Can you imagine that so many chemicals, so many pesticides, the FSSAI hasn't issued any warnings about them even after so many reports.
This is a concerning matter for our country. The Pesticides Action Network India conducted a study, they found that of the 275 pesticides used in India about 255 of them are toxic poisons, and 56 are carcinogenic. This study was conducted in 2017.
Today, 292 pesticides are used in our country. The children are the most vulnerable. Because this affects their brain growth and development.
Some people may consider organic food to be the solution. In my opinion, it is definitely the better option. But there are 2 problems with organic food.
First, how many people can afford that kind of food? And the second problem is that India's organic food, is classified as a risk by America and Europe. 11th January 2021, America's Department of Agriculture ended their agreement with India's Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority.
As per this agreement, Indian businesses, could use USDA certification for the organic food produced in India. But America backed out of this agreement by saying that India's organic control system is insufficient. It does not meet their standards, if the USDA organic label is used for those products, it would degrade the label's reputation.
Look at this scientific report published in Europe in March 2024. It's published by European Union's EFSA. It mentions that the organic organic dry beans, rice, and cumin seeds, imported from India have been contaminated by the Chlorpyrifos pesticide.
So even if you eat organic food, there's no guarantee that it won't contain any pesticide. Although, I'd still say that it will be the better choice, if you can afford it. But despite all of this, the most shameless thing done by the Modi government, was this.
On 8th April 2024, FSSAI issued a notification. It increased the MRL or Maximum Residual Limit of pesticides. Not by a small margin, by 10 times.
The government increased the permissible limit of pesticides by 10 times. Earlier, 0. 01 milligram per kilogram of pesticide was acceptable.
Then it was increased to 0. 1 milligram of pesticide by 1 kilogram. In this notification, FSSAI said that these figures have been set after proper field trials, But the Pesticide Action Network India raised an objection to this mandate.
They said that the CIBRC doesn't even conduct field trials of pesticides. All data is provided by manufacturing companies and CIBRC merely approves the pesticides based on that data. When people started talking about this news on social media, the FSSAI started to defend itself by saying that the news was untrue and an attempt to defame them.
Look at this news article. FSSAI claims that the reports of them raising the limit to 10 times what it was were false and malicious reports. And that India has the most stringent standards.
So let's look at their defense and how untrue this news was. They acknowledge that they have raised the limits, to 10 times what it was, but only for those pesticides, that are not registered with the CIBRC. CIBRC is the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee of India.
They do admit that they raised the permissible limit for some pesticides. So the first question is, why did they raise it? Look at their order from August 2022 on their website, the second section of the 3rd point states that those pesticides that are not registered with the CIBRC, have the default limit at 0.
01 milligram per kilogram. They allowed a lower limit for these pesticides in their older orders. But now, why has the limit been increased?
FSSAI has another excuse that they had to increase the default limit, because the imported food from foreign countries maybe from a country where this limit is higher, so they wanted to raise the limit to allow those imported food. They shifted the blame to other countries. Because the imported food may have higher levels of pesticides, they are willing to let their countrymen consume food laced with pesticides.
Our government is doing just the opposite of what the developed countries are doing. What did the European Union, Hong Kong, Singapore do? They do not water down the regulations in their country, they keep their domestic regulations strict, so that their citizens get high-quality imported food, without any pesticides.
And if FSSAI is so concerned about imported food, how many times have they warned Indian citizens about high levels of pesticides in any imported food? Have you ever come across any FSSAI warnings? Is the Modi government taking bribes from these pesticide companies?
Is this hiding another kickback scam? This isn't only about us consumers, this affects the farmers too. According to BMC Public Health data, globally, 11,000 farmers lose their lives every year due to pesticides.
About 6,500 of these farmers are generally Indians. It means that 60% of the farmers who lose their lives, are from our country. However, these numbers are under-reported and there's no law to ensure the safety of farmers.
Far from providing safety, when there's any form of adulteration in food, people blame the farmers. But as I told you, the ethylene oxide contamination in food, isn't because of the production, it happens during the storage and post-production stage. And talking about pesticides, companies put so much pressure on the farmers, forcing them to use more and more pesticides.
Farmers are told that they will get a good harvest only when they use a lot of pesticides. An article in the Deccan Herald reported a farmer saying that companies tell them to spray pesticides before they begin planting. And the seeds are coated with chemicals too.
In fact, the bio-pesticides, which are the naturally occurring chemicals, are actually a cocktail of chemicals nowadays. In 2015, our government set up an Expert Committee under the chairmanship of DrAnupam Verma. This committee reviewed 66 pesticides, that are banned in some country or the other, but are still used in India.
When this committee submitted its report, it recommended that the government ban at least 13 of these pesticides, and 6 other pesticides be phased out by 2020. But the government took 4 years to listen to this committee. In 2019, 12 pesticides were finally banned.
And it was planned to phase out 6 by December 2020. The government delayed taking action for 5 years. Moreover, on 14th May 2020, the Central Government issued a draft order, that of the 66 pesticides mentioned, 27 should be banned.
But the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers opposed this ban. And the central government took a U-turn. Three years later, in February 2023, another notification was issued by the government.
This time, the government wanted to ban only 3 out of the 27 pesticides. 24 out of the 27 pesticides are completely banned in other countries. But our Modi government thinks that it's enough to ban only 3 of them.
Why does our government give a free hand to FMCG companies and pesticide companies like this? Even the foreign companies come to India, they are allowed to exploit standards like this. You must have watched Food Pharmer's videos.
He has investigated numerous products across multiple companies. Nestlé, KitKat, Cerelac, Lays, Pringles, Skittles, m&ms, Cadbury, Bournvita. Recently, he exposed Indigo Airline's food.
How even their so-called healthy food, like upma, poha, dal-chawal, have a higher level of sodium than Maggi. But how do these companies respond? That their actions are within the boundaries set by law.
The guidelines set by the government. They claim that they are fulfilling the FSSAI norms. So friends, whether it is an Indian food company, MNCs, chemicals, pesticides, companies selling cold drinks, natural 'Ayurveda' scams, government doesn't actively control any of them.
Prime Minister Modi is busy giving speeches and scaring people with mangalsutra, mutton, and Muslims. While people are being served poisonous food. The true solution can come only from the government.
If the government introduces stricter regulations. If the government stops taking kickbacks in the form of political donations. As an individual, we can try to buy organic food.
If you know a farmer, buy produce from them directly, so that you can be assured of its quality. Back to ethylene oxide, since there were problems with the storage, try to buy the freshest produce possible. If you doubt the quality of any food item, you can get them tested at different laboratories.
I mentioned this at the beginning of the video, a Twitter user sent a sample to test for ethylene oxide. Overall, the more that you can try to promote organic food the better it would be. But the true solution to this lethal problem, can come only through the government.
Will the incumbent Modi government deliver this solution? I find that hard to believe because this government is busy raking in money by whatever means. Not only did this lobbying and kickbacks poison our food, but they have also degraded the quality of our medicines.
I talked about it in the Pharma Files video, click here to watch the video for more details. Thank you very much!
