Spice for thought

Food security is not just about having enough to eat, it is as much about making sure what people eat is safe.

In a breathtaking display of callousness to public health, two weeks into a ban on Indian spice brands Everest and MDH, their products continue to be available in the market, including on various online stores. According to officials at the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, the public need not panic as the problematic batches of these products have been pulled from the market and their import stopped. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that most stores never stopped selling these spice brands. Another of the department’s laughable excuses for its failure to examine the collected spice samples is that it lacks necessary chemicals to test for traces of ethylene oxide, which is directly linked to multiple forms of cancer. It was because of the reported presence of this chemical in the products of the two brands—as discovered in food labs in Singapore and Hong Kong—that they had to be banned in Nepal. Because of poor demand following the ban, importers say, very little of these spices is entering Nepal. Yet, here again, there is no evidence to prove that claim.