Ethical business

ETHICAL business is becoming a rarity in our society. Unethical business, including open sale of adulterated food, has become a common practice in the food shops and the unaware customers are at a high risk.
Food adulteration means adding cheap and harmful ingredients in the food items to make additional profit. Deliberate adulteration is a criminal act and punishable offence under the laws of the land. Poisonous chemicals like formalin are being used indiscriminately to keep fish, fruit, meat and milk fresh. As a result, not only the innocent customers are being deceived, it is also causing numerous diseases. Although most of the super shops claim that they are practising ethical business and most of their products on sale are fresh, organic and grown in their own firms, the reality, unfortunately, is different. It is found that customers are often deceived by poor quality of foods and items that contain unhealthy and harmful substances in them. Adulterated foods have multiple impacts on human body. They cause several diseases of liver and kidney including cirrhosis and liver failure, electrolyte imbalance and eventually kidney failure. Heart diseases, blood disorders and bone marrow abnormality are also detected. Skin problems are also frequently seen including allergic infections. We all know that adulterating food is a punishable offence as it creates serious health hazards and even kill human beings. But we appear to have accepted it as a way of life and tend to forget everything for some unknown reasons.
This should not be allowed to continue and we shall have to wage an all-out war on all forms of food adulteration. The government should also take the matter up on priority basis and bring the culprits to justice.
We should also create awareness among the people about the harmful effects of adulterated foods.
Sumaiya Akter
East West University, Dhaka