Technoglitch
Core Member
When Maggi-gate broke, I was, smug in the knowledge that I had never eaten the (once) iconic noodles. There was no chance I was slow-poisoning myself. You see, my family eats mostly home-cooked fresh food, much of which I cook. A quick review of the scientific literature quickly dispatched my smugness.
Let’s start with root vegetables, such as radish and carrot. Both had lead three times, or 300% higher, than safe limits, according to a 2013 study by three Kolkata researchers, who also found spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, beet, brinjal, and spinach with unsafe levels of lead. Chilli, ladyfinger and tomato appeared safe. Now, this study was done in Kolkata, but other studies returned similar results nationwide. When I was editor of Indian Express in Mumbai in the late 1990s, we commissioned tests on spinach and fish and found lead levels many times higher that safe, if I remember.
As Karnataka and Singapore declare Maggi safe, Nestle tussles with regulators over methods and samples and more states jump on the ban-wagon, it is increasingly clear that the noodle industry—even if guilty—is less than a bit player.
Lead is now in the air we breathe—thankfully removed from much vehicular exhaust after Indian petrol became lead free in 2000—the water we drink, the soil that nurtures our crops and grass that slaughterhouse animals eat. Whether you are vegetarian or non-vegetarian, nothing is really safe because India is turning into a contaminated, environmental wasteland. Lead is no more than an exemplar, an indicator, a marker of degradation. Numerous contaminants endanger us—including lead’s heavy metal cousins, such as cadmium, mercury and arsenic—but let’s stick with what is one of the commonest and most dangerous of the toxics.
Lead is among the most toxic heavy metals known because it is soluble in water, reacts easily with a variety of chemicals and does not break down over time. It accumulates instead in the tissue of plants and animals, its levels increasing as it goes up the biological chain. When released from the earth and used in, say, a factory, it can get into the water, move into the soil, into products such as noodle tastemakers, permeate into spinach and humans.
Forget those noodles - Livemint
Let’s start with root vegetables, such as radish and carrot. Both had lead three times, or 300% higher, than safe limits, according to a 2013 study by three Kolkata researchers, who also found spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, beet, brinjal, and spinach with unsafe levels of lead. Chilli, ladyfinger and tomato appeared safe. Now, this study was done in Kolkata, but other studies returned similar results nationwide. When I was editor of Indian Express in Mumbai in the late 1990s, we commissioned tests on spinach and fish and found lead levels many times higher that safe, if I remember.
As Karnataka and Singapore declare Maggi safe, Nestle tussles with regulators over methods and samples and more states jump on the ban-wagon, it is increasingly clear that the noodle industry—even if guilty—is less than a bit player.
Lead is now in the air we breathe—thankfully removed from much vehicular exhaust after Indian petrol became lead free in 2000—the water we drink, the soil that nurtures our crops and grass that slaughterhouse animals eat. Whether you are vegetarian or non-vegetarian, nothing is really safe because India is turning into a contaminated, environmental wasteland. Lead is no more than an exemplar, an indicator, a marker of degradation. Numerous contaminants endanger us—including lead’s heavy metal cousins, such as cadmium, mercury and arsenic—but let’s stick with what is one of the commonest and most dangerous of the toxics.
Lead is among the most toxic heavy metals known because it is soluble in water, reacts easily with a variety of chemicals and does not break down over time. It accumulates instead in the tissue of plants and animals, its levels increasing as it goes up the biological chain. When released from the earth and used in, say, a factory, it can get into the water, move into the soil, into products such as noodle tastemakers, permeate into spinach and humans.
Forget those noodles - Livemint
