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In Sri Lanka, hundreds of residents are taking an unusual taste test. They're sampling a variety of local breads and bread products to see whether they can detect anything unusual in any of the items. Do the testers notice a flavor of rusty nails in a sample of flat bread, for instance? Do they smell anything peculiar in a particular cookie? Though the test
may seem like a challenge for epicures, its ultimate goal is to
conquer anaemia among Sri Lanka's 18 million residents. Estimates indicate
that half the women in Sri Lanka and throughout Southeast Asia have
the disorder, the most common nutritional disorder in the world,
says Rebecca Stoltzfus, assistant professor of nutrition at the
School of Public Health. "Southeast Asia is probably the worst
area in the world for iron deficiency," she says. Anaemia lowers
a person's ability to think, decreases productivity, and increases
the risk of infection. Pregnant women with anaemia have a greater risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. In children, anemia can retard growth and mental development. "As countries develop and get rid of other nutritional problems, anaemia hangs on," says Stoltzfus, particularly in places where people consume few animal products, which supply iron. Parasites like
hookworm also contribute to anaemia by eating blood, which stores
most of the body's iron. With the United
States Agency for International Development and the Sri Lankan government,
Stoltzfus is developing a program to reduce anaemia by fortifying
all Sri Lanka's wheat flour with iron. Step one are the taste tests, to see whether volunteers can taste or smell iron in various breads, pastas, crackers, and cookies prepared with iron-fortified flour. "Food fortification
is a good intervention," says Stoltzfus. "It's extremely
inexpensive. The cost-benefit analysis becomes meaningless."
Furthermore,
wheat is a prime food to fortify in Sri Lanka, she says, since it
comprises about 40 percent of the nation's staple calories. All the country's
wheat is imported from the U.S. and processed at one mill. So why hasn't
it been done already? One stumbling
block is that scientists first need to find out how much iron and
what type of iron should be used. "We'd like to pack in as
much iron as we can without it tasting like rust," says Stoltzfus.
Bread with too much iron won't be palatable, and consumers won't buy it. So the products in the taste test contain varying amounts. The bread products also contain five different forms of iron, ranging from ones that are highly bio-available (more likely to be absorbed by the blood supply) to those that are of low bio-availability (thus more likely to be excreted). Ideally, says Stolzfus, "we'd like to pick the highest level of bio-avail- ability. But when you use iron that is more bio-available it can react with the fats in the bread," she says. "The bread ends up tasting like nails, or the color changes to green, or the bread doesn't rise as well." For phase two of the project, Stoltzfus and her colleagues are designing a study to monitor the levels of haemoglobin (the iron-carrying molecule found in red blood cells) and rates of anaemia in people who are eating fortified flour. The study seeks
to make sure that fortification really does increase their blood
iron levels. How many women does it take to sell a light bulb? By Ishani
Ranasinghe and Thiruni Kelegama
The product
advertised? Tea. The product? Light bulbs. An elderly man
and his wife waiting for a bus. A young woman walks by. The man
then starts talking about shapeliness and smoothness. The woman
instantly jumps to the conclusion that he is talking about the young
woman who passed by, but she's mistaken! Tyres - the
product being advertised here. A topless woman.
Guaranteed to catch your eye. But here, a man stands next to her
completely uninterested. And the caption reads "You need a
better reason to take it all off." The product advertised? A shirt. This is advertising in Sri Lanka. A powerful tool One of the most powerful forms of communication ever thought of by man, advertising could influence a person and convinces him or her to do whatever you want him or her to do, or buy whatever you want them to buy. Advertises thus have a powerful tool in their hands. But with this great power comes great responsibility. Yet, the majority of the advertisements we see on our TV screens and in our newspapers, not to mention in all other forms of media, fall short in many aspects. Some of them, (we leave you, the reader, to decide which), are in woefully bad taste, and show no respect for our lifestyles or mores. The public at large have in recent times expressed their views in a spate of letters on offensive advertisements. "It is plain disgusting," one irate reader commented. "I have two young children, and as a parent who urges the children to read the papers, I have to say that I cannot ask them to do so anymore. So many advertisements are somewhat pornographic in nature and that is not what I want to expose my children to. Why can't we do something about this; like have a regulatory body which will decide which of the ads can be aired and which cannot?" Why indeed? Reggie Candappa, Chairman of Grant McCann Erickson, the 'godfather' of advertising in Sri Lanka agrees that the state of advertising in Sri Lanka is far from ideal. "As a person who has been in this industry for more than 40 years, I have to admit this is not what I would call tasteful advertising". Advertising has to be in good taste, he says. "No amount of advertising, be it good or bad, would sell a bad product. And what is most important in the end, is that we are trying to sell a product; not make all the consumers think that this is the most sordid advertising they ever saw. That would definitely not sell a product- and it is not what advertising is all about!" At present there are more than 1000 advertising agencies in Sri Lanka. Why this proliferation? Agencies cannot handle competitive brands and hence when an agency has to create the advertising for a particular product they try their best to outdo the advertisements another agency has created for the same product of a different brand. This is when the competition sets in! And where things start going wrong. Unfair portrayal? Children are made use of in a manner that would tempt all children at large. "This is
generally called subliminal advertising", says Kenneth Honter,
Director Operations, Minds FCB. "Come to think of it, we really
aren't being fair, but that is advertising!" Moreover, most
ads today portray woman as a sex object. Why then is
there no law to regulate such advertising? "The law
that involves advertising is an unwritten law; it is more of a self-regulatory
law," Honter explains. "The advertisements
we see today reveal that we are thought of nothing more than something
to 'turn' men on. Take the ad
with the topless woman in the papers. It was downright offensive
to all women," says Nalika Perera. "I felt so insulted,"
she added. A number of
women echoed her feelings. Commented Nimal
Gunawardane, Managing Director at Bates Strategic Alliance, "This
is an industry where we should be able to say 'Yes, this is right'
and 'No, this is wrong'. Just because
we are in a position to come up with anything, because advertising
is all about creativity, does not mean that we can offend people.
Ultimately they are our customers." Opinions vary However, the
agency behind the ‘topless woman’ ad believes that this
advertisement was not in bad taste. Dinesh Watawana,
CEO, 7th Frontier, agrees that a majority of the advertisements
made in Sri Lanka fall short when it comes to showing consideration
for women, but said this ad 'was all in good taste'. What may be
in good taste for me, could not be in good taste for another person,"
he said, " I cannot do much about that." The agency
had asked a number of people what they thought of the advertisement,
he said, and "they did not have a problem with it. The name of
the brand had stuck in their minds and that shows we were effective,"
he said. Is being 'effective' all that counts? Well, it is a bonus, if the advertisement, as Watawana says, is in good taste.
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