In Pakistan, though large supermarkets and stores do care about the expiry dates of various consumable items, small shopkeepers are oblivious to this important requirement. Rather, they have no concept as to what dangers are involved if items with expired dates are consumed. These shopkeepers keep selling these items till they’re all exhausted.
This is highly dangerous for the health of the consumers.In the US, the Food and Drug Administration controls food items and drugs. All businessmen dealing in such items are highly scared of this organisation as this government agency doesn’t spare anyone if he’s found flouting the rules.
Once I happened to visit a supermarket in one of the states in the US. My friend had to purchase some bread for the breakfast. On checking the label, the bread turned out to be expired by one day. When the owner was shown the expiry date on the bread, he became restless and was extremely apologetic and thankful. He then threw the entire lot in the dustbin in front of us. Perhaps, this was just an inadvertent omission as it never happens in any developed country.
In the US, only five per cent of all food is inspected by the FDA, whereas 95 percent goes unchecked. It’s difficult to perform a 100 percent check of all the food items due to the huge costs involved. But even this five percent check in the US is more effective than a 50 percent check in our own country.
Some of the drug manufacturing companies in Pakistan print the dates of manufacturing and expiry on the packets or bottles containing medicine in such a way that they aren’t clearly visible to the users. To me it appears to be a wilful act of omission and not inadvertent. Just imagine how dangerous it is to take expired medicines.
Some time back, in one of the industrial areas of Karachi, the spinach being sold in the market was found to be dark green as compared to its normal green colour. The reason was that that spinach was grown in a field which was home to dangerous effluents of the entire industrial area.
Such vegetable was laden with heavy metals whose consumption could impair various human faculties. It’s a great cause of concern for the people who deal with checking food and preservation of good environment in our country. The businessman will, no doubt, try to make quick bucks but then it’s the duty of such people entrusted with the sacred responsibility of checking these items not to allow him doing so at the cost of the health of poor consumers.
SANA ASAD
Karachi
