Be wise, think before you eat - EDITORIAL

n the afterglow of World Environment Day yesterday, one important practical step would be to reflect on the extent to which we have polluted Mother Earth and made the soil virtually infertile. As a result most of us, including little children are eating or drinking doses of poison with each meal and this may be one of the main reasons why most of us are falling sick more often while hospitals have become like market places or big profit-making businesses.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) retired veteran Ranjit Seneviratne -- who specializes in organic farming and regenerative agriculture -- has given us some shocking details about how what we eat and drink is polluted or poisoned in different ways, mainly by transnational companies.
According to Mr. Seneviratne, 30 - 35% of Sri Lankans are diabetic, 35,000 plus people have died of chronic kidney disease and thousands are dying of cancer. The cancer hospital poster tells us not to eat “Cheena Batu” as it causes Cancer. Malaysians call it “Sayo Manis” and they eat it to prevent cancer. What is going on?

Every year, at least one new hospital starts business.  It is so profitable that a well-known Engineering Company has also gone into the hospital business. People are sick and need money for treatment. So new banks are opening now to rake in the profits. 
The solution is simple. Just stop taking the poisons we shall mention later and wheat flour that now has no “gullas” because it has an insecticide. Wheat also has a problem protein, “Gluten” which causes the leaky gut syndrome. In the United States they are going for “Gluten-free” -- so the multinationals are dumping it on poor countries like Sri Lanka at low prices. The result -- bakeries and bread sellers are all over the town and the bread is even brought to your door step in three-wheelers.  Kimbulas kill you in one bite but ‘Kimbula Banis’ will kill you slowly, your toes first then your feet and may be blindness also.  Diabetes kills slowly but surely.

Mr. Seneviratne says most of us are not aware that a big transnational company adds juice extracted from beef in its chocolate. In a case at the Chennai High Court, a beauty culture product company accepted that its cream contained the oil from pig fats. A popular variety of balm has been banned in many European countries because it is a slow poison. But in Sri Lanka it is marketed in a big way. Another example is a variety of soap marketed as a bath and toilet soap. But in other countries it is used for bathing animals. Europe uses this soap for dogs but in Sri Lanka millions of people are encouraged to use it while children are abused to market it. A popular fizzy drink is in reality a toilet cleaner. It has been proved that it contains 21 types of poisons. Its sale is banned in the Indian Parliament but in Sri Lanka it is sold everywhere. 

According to Mr. Seneviratne, certain transnational companies are having a big sale of some varieties of  so-called health tonics here. When tested in Delhi at the All India Institute which houses the biggest laboratory in India, it was found that it is made from the waste left after oil is extracted from groundnut. When the Indian film idol Amitabh Bachchan was operated in hospital for ten hours, surgeons had to cut and remove large sections of the intestine and the surgeons had told him that the intestines had decayed due to the excessive intake of a variety of soft drinks. 
Lots of people go for pizzas today. To make pizzas tasty, some companies add E-631 flavour enhancer which is made of pork or pig meat. If the following codes are mentioned on food packs then you should know what you are unknowingly consuming:
 E 322 - Beef
 E 422 - Alcohol
 E 442 - Alcohol & chemical
 E 471 - Beef & alcohol
 E 476 - Alcohol
 E 481 - Mixture of beef and pork
 E 627 - Dangerous chemical
 E 472 - Mixture of beef, meat & pork
 E 631 - Oil extracted from pig fats.

Don’t ignore these warnings. If you have some doubts, search by yourself, use the internet. Parents or elders need to do this at least for the well-being of their innocent children.