Letter: All about dangerous foods

Sat, 09/20/2008 11:34 AM  |  Reader's Forum

For quite some time now we unfortunate Indonesians and all foreigners who happen to reside here have been faced with a health scare that has now taken on enormous and frightening proportions. I am talking about food.

Almost every day now, TV stations broadcast bloodcurdling news about the following finds in local markets: water-logged meat, chickens that have died the day before and are therefore not more than stinking cadavers, putrid beef hearts and livers, moldy bread, bread containing an enormous amount of preservatives, tinned goods that have far surpassed the expiration date, cincau (green jelly) that has been fortified with cheap powder for preservation, and candy floss that is brightly colored, not with safe food coloring.

There are also lengthy and hair-raising reports about fish preserved with formaldehyde and H2O2, and deliberately contaminated duck eggs, chicken eggs, milk, and so on, and so forth. The list is seemingly endless.

These terrifying reports also include adulterated fruit: Red watermelons, for instance, are injected with a red dye to enhance their attractive color.

The latest and extremely frightening report, shown on TV a few days ago, is that food garbage from hotels is gathered by certain parties, selected, and then, so help me, "prepared" again and then sold to unsuspecting customers.

All these illegal, criminal and decidedly haram (forbiden) activities are perpetrated in order to obtain more profits. That's what the caught culprits (who should be immediately put to the wall and shot) say.

But what does the government do? What do the smooth-talking government officials and politicians do? What do the hard-line Islamic groups do halt these unquestionably and criminal activities?

Not all of Indonesians can afford to go to expensive supermarkets to purchase the safest and highest-quality food. Therefore, we have to rely on the food in traditional and small-to medium markets being safe for consumption. And this is not the case.

We Indonesians are evidently being massively poisoned on a large scale, and especially the snack-loving and gullible children of low-class-income families are the easiest targets.

But it does seem that most government officials, people's representatives and politicians are more concerned about passing a very defective porn bill and winning elections than caring about the health of our present generation and future ones.

TAMI KOESTOMO
Bogor

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