Pesticides and Soft Drinks
CSE recently released the results of its study on pesticides in soft drinks, and we have seen some pretty quick reactions like state assemblies and universities banning the soft drinks on their campuses. But are these knee jerk reactions to divert attention from the real issues. Is the opposition to soft drink majors justified, or even correct? Will banning the soft drinks be of any good to the common man on the streets?
While I am not an avid cola consumer, I do feel that the opposition to soft drinks majors is nothing but a ploy to divert attention from the real issues. The issue at the moment is that soft-drinks contain a heave amount of deadly pesticides (a cocktail of toxins), and conveniently ignores the same cocktail of toxins present in other items of daily consumption. Frankly, in a country where people consume more tea then colas, one would assume that pesticide levels in tea would have caught more media attention than the pesticide level in cola, but no our activists and health ministry (or at least the minister) is more interested in colas…
No manufacturer adds pesticides to a product of own free will, and if pesticides are found in the product it hints that the raw materials used in manufacture have had the pesticides in them. Now cola is basically carbonated water and sugar, so either the water is laced with pesticides or the sugar contains high amounts of pesticides. Funny, that no one is concerned about pesticide levels in water and sugar though both are consumed a thousand time more than cola…
While, the soft drink manufacturers must take every step possible to make sure that the raw materials used are free from pesticides and other impurities, we must also focus on the fact that most of the items of daily consumption are laced with pesticides to a much greater extent than the colas. Have you ever tested the tap water (that you are supposed to drink) for pesticide levels, or the vegetables, or the wheat, or the dal?
Unfortunately, the governments in India have successively promoted the use to non-degradable pesticides to increase the agricultural yield. Even today, farmers are subsidized to use DDT (no where else in the civilized world would you find DDT being used for anything whatsoever). Consequently, our ground water contains the very same (okay, now you understand why soft drinks contains pesticides), and all our food products are heavy in DDT and other toxin contents.
I hope this controversy brings attention to our flawed agricultural policies. After all, we can stop consuming soft drinks, but can we stop consuming roti and dal?
Posted under: Thoughts
