Financial Times

Consumer issues
Good food, bad food? Scientists take the easy way out
For years coconut oil was considered healthy until scientists discovered, about two decades ago, that it could trigger cholesterol and lead to heart diseases.
That led the vegetable oil revolution prompting many coconut industry producers to accuse the West of simply scaring off Third World consumers to shift to other oils. The coconut oil versus palm oil debate has been growing over the years with doctors pitted against each other.

In a scenario where consumers are often at the mercy of the medical profession, how does one decide what is best for your health. “People want a simple yes or no answer on health issues. The scientific community cannot give such an answer. We have to be careful and give a scientific analysis. The scientific community takes a conservative stand on these issues and bases its assumptions on scientific data,” noted Prof. Upali Samarajeewa, a food scientist attached to the Peradeniya University.

He was asked, during a seminar on food safety organized by the SLAAS in Colombo last week, as to why scientists and the medical profession confuse people or patients with technical jargon on food habits that the latter cannot understand.

Earlier Prof Dulitha Fernando from the University of Colombo said food poisoning commonly comes from bad meat, poultry, milk or eggs.
She said intestinal infection was the seventh leading cause of hospital admissions in Sri Lanka. “Changing patterns of food production and globalization have led to the widespread outbreak of food borne disease. There are many changes in the way food is packaged and this is based on the needs of the people.

They want it to be nicer and look good,” she said, adding that there was a need for an effective surveillance system to prevent food contamination. Prof Samarajeewa said food safety management was based on scientific principles while the testing of products (before they come into the market) by authorities here is through ad hoc sample collection in what is called the ‘snapshot approach’. “This is not very helpful and you can’t detect food contamination this way,” he said.

On the other hand food-control systems and food regulations are not good preventive measures because the modern approach now is to move away from applying product criteria to a system of performance criteria, he said adding that the industry must lead in this process. Asked how consumers are – in the absence of proper regulation-- to ascertain whether production and expiry dates listed on products are accurate, he said, “well … the food industry is supposed to be honest. They have to take responsibility for their product.”
He welcomed the creation of the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board – even if it was 50 years too late and should have come earlier – saying it would ensure high quality standards of local products for the international market.

He referred to a recent report in The Sunday Times FT on HACCP requirements for Sri Lankan tea entering the European market and said quality and standards were important and were becoming a necessity outside. Prof Samarajeewa said however that HACCP was not only about modernizing factories. That’s a small fraction of the problem, he said.

On GM foods, he said when the government enforced a ban on GM foods, Sri Lanka was unable to defend itself against the decision and following an international outcry, the ban was lifted.

“We didn’t have enough research at that time to defend the ban,” he added. Asked about the plethora of ISO certification bodies, he said the ISO certification has got mismanaged with various bodies creating a credibility issue.

To the question whether the ISO or HACCP sticker on a product means it’s a “good” product and that consumers can thus assume the product is safe, the food scientist said, “What one can assume through these labels is that these products are better than other products.”

(Comments on these views could be emailed to ft@sundaytimes.wnl.lk)

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