Research

On

Adulterated Food and Consumer Awareness about It

Prepared For

Fariah Hassan (FHS)

Course Instructor, Eng105, Section- 37

North South University

Prepared By:

Mushfique Ahmed

ID: 151 1839 030

Eng105, Section- 37

North South University

Date: 28th July, 2017

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my sincere gratitude to my honorable faculty Miss FARIAH HASSAN for giving me

the opportunity to present myself and to work on the report of ADULTERATED FOOD AND

CONSUMER AWARENESS ABOUT IT. At the same time, your lectures in the class have been

given very helpful for me and have inspired me a lot to work on this topic. Because awareness

about food adulteration plays a very important role in every sector in todays day to day life.

I also like to thank Nazia Tahsin Rintee who is an undergraduate student of North South

University and has helped me a lot by throughout the research. Last but not least, I would like to

thank all of my mates who have provided me the full support and for responding to answer my

survey questionnaire.

ABSTRACT

The main objective of my research paper is to present the awareness of adulterated food and

leading to a healthy life. From my perception, if we look at the common diseases around the

world we would see that most of them causes because of bad food. Specially, when it comes to

third world country like Bangladesh, we would see it happens often regularly. If we look at the

last couple of decades we will see that food adulteration occurs regularly. People often talk about

it. But still it is growing very largely. Why it is happening? What is the main reason of it? Many

people think that food poisoning is happening because government does not take action to

prevent. Yes, there is some blame on the government. But not all the blame falls into

government. The citizen also has some blame. Some people know about food adulteration, but

when they go to buy food or eat food they forget about it.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

SL NO. CONTENT PAGE NO.

01. Introduction 4

02. Background 5-6

03. Research Questions 6-7

04. Hypothesis 7-8

05. Methodology 8

06. Data Presentation and Analysis 9-15

07. Summary of Research Findings 15

08. Recommendation 15-16

09. Conclusion 16

10. References 17-20

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INTRODUCTION:

Food adulteration is the process in which the quality of food is reduced either by the addition of

substandard material or by extraction of valuable ingredient or by removing all or any part of the

natural ingredients from one or the other party, by mixing different components of relatively low

price, by increasing the weight or quantity or by making attractive for economic gain. Many

people around us are victims of it every day.

The center attention of my research will be food adulteration in Bangladesh and how frightening

it is for future generations. Adulteration of food with poisonous chemicals which is harmful to

health has reached an extensive proportion in Bangladesh. For this reason, many people are

dying. I want to show it through my research. Why the food adulteration is increasing day by day

in our country? Are we not aware of it so much? In addition, I would also want to know want to

know about the experience of those who are victims of food adulteration.

This research is all about food adulteration, so in this research there will be all queries about

adulterated food in every sector where it is related.

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BACKGROUND:

If we look at the common diseases around the world we would see that most of them causes

because of bad food. Specially, when it comes to third world country like Bangladesh, we would

see it happens often regularly. If we look at the last couple of decades we will see that food

adulteration occurs regularly. People often talk about it. But still it is growing very largely. Why

it is happening? What is the main reason of it? Many people think that food poisoning is

happening because government does not take action to prevent. Yes, there is some blame on the

government. But not all the blame falls into government. The citizen also has some blame. Some

people know about food adulteration, but when they go to buy food or eat food they forget about

it.

Since the birth of mankind, people are trying to increase the taste of food and also trying to keep

the food fresh as long as they could. Over time, people are starting to sell food in the market.

Also, people are starting to eat in a restaurant. Nowadays, eating in a restaurant is a very

common thing. By the time, people started to realize they can make huge money by selling food.

As a result, food adulteration started for economic gain. Because if the seller gives insecticides

or formalin the food remains fresh for a longer time than normally does.

Not only is the pesticide or formalin used to keep the food fresh for a long time, but also less

expensive elements are mixed with it. Because in the present age there are many people and to

meet the need of people market need more supply. Some products are too expensive to buy. As

result, to gain much higher profit businessman adds cheaper products to prepare food or to

increase the weight of food. For instance, some people add water into milk; some people add

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cheap spices into food. Also, some food might be expired but the shop doesnt inform the

customer about it.

So, which type of food is more adulterated? The answer is food selling in local market, vegetable

market. Company which are very popular like Wal-Mart, they do not involve in this kind of

corruption. Also, many local restaurants, cafeteria, shops, general store are also involved in food

fraud.

Food adulteration causes many problems; because of food adulteration 60% people are having

malnutrition in Bangladesh. Street vendors food contains huge bacteria which causes various

diseases. In the last 20 years food adulteration in Bangladesh are increasing and no huge action

has been taken since then. Food adulteration causes diarrhea. As a result, many children are

dying. People are getting sick and went to hospital often because foods contain poisonous

product.

We do authority to check on food adulteration. Bangladesh Food Safety Authority has passed an

act in 2013 that says no to sell adulterated food and expired food, not to sell those foods that

have in touch with contagious diseases. According to 2009 food act, every customer has right to

complain about restaurant, shops, market if those markets, shops, restaurant sold adulterated

food.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

Everything which is concerns about adulterated food should be analyzed very thoroughly.

Adulterated food is one of the most important topics in our society which is hugely responsible

for death of many people, especially child death, for this reason, I decided to thoroughly

investigate this topic, some of my question is given below.

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 What is the current situation on adulterated food in Bangladesh and if it continues to run

like this what will be the result in the future?

How the people of Bangladesh are being affected by food adulteration?

What kinds of problems or experiences have to those who have been affected by food

adulteration?

How much awareness people have about food adulteration?

People are not aware of food fraud- is this the only reason for food adulteration in the

country?

What is our duty to prevent adulteration of food?

HYPOTHESIS:

Bangladesh is a small country with the huge amount of people. Most of them are poor.

Especially poor people do not have much knowledge about food. There are some people who

have knowledge about food. But unfortunately, only a small number of people are aware of

nutritious food when they went to buy it. I think not being aware and the law is not strong

enough to put an end to food fraud is the main cause of increasing adulterated food. Some people

are saying that food adulteration is decreasing and is going to stop. But I think it is not and those

who are saying are mostly people who have benefited economically for this deception. For those

who have suffered from food adulteration, I show deep sympathy for them. Yes, there are many

people who are now living very well. But we all know lots of children died in our country

because of food poison and many of them are still fighting in the hospital.

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People are hoping that things will change. But I prefer to think differently. In order to change

things we all need to take stand because, Hope is a mistake. If you cant fix whats broken you

will go insane. (Miller, & Miller, Mitchell & Voeten, 2015)

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

For my research, I will conduct two kinds of research. These are primary and secondary. My

primary research will carry out on some student of North South University and some will carry

out outside North South University. A survey questions containing an assortment of questions

related to the research theme will be given to them.

For the secondary research, I will collect some information from few doctors especially child

doctors. I will also collect some information from libraries and the web. Most of my content will

be collected from web sites for secondary research. I will use search engine Google and many e-

books.

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Data Presentation and Analysis:

What is the current situation on adulterated food in Bangladesh and if it continues to run

like this what will be the result in the future?

This question was asked to understand how important this topic is. If we know what is current

situation we will be able to understand the depth of it.

Current situation on adulterated food

Experienced adulteration in
food 70.8%
Have not experience
adulteration in food 29.2%

Findings: I found that 70.8% people have come across adulterated food and 29.2% havent. In

2001 it was 60% according to Public Health Department in Dhaka University. So it has increased

if we this sample in terms of whole population.

It also indicates that it will increase in near future as 10.8% has already increased.

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 How the people of Bangladesh are being affected by food adulteration?

I asked this question to understand better that what is causing food adulteration. Because

normally when we asked people, it seems they all know about food fraud. Then why it is still

happening? Thats the reason we are going to find in here.

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
No
50%
Yes
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Unconcious Attracted by Aware about Filled case in
citizen colors consumer court consumer court

Findings: In this survey, we can see most people are unconscious (58.30%) when they buy food.

Most people are attracted by colors (56.25%), which is bad because color contains poisonous

ingredient. Not most people are aware of consumer court (54.10%). But the most interesting

thing is, those who aware of it and have experienced adulterated food 79.10% have never filled a

case because they think government will take no action to their report. But when we collected

data from secondary resource, it indicated the opposite means government saying people are not

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filling any case, as a result they are not taking any action. This is huge misunderstanding

between people and government.

What kinds of problems or experiences have to those who have been affected by

food adulteration?

I asked this question to show what happens because of food adulteration.

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
No
50%
40% Yes
30%
20%
10%
0%
Have been affected Affected with many Death of a family
financially while diseases member
treatment

Many people have been affected by food adulteration. And many them are also affected

financially to get treatment (65.40%), because medical treatment is not cheap. A lot of

people are affected with many diseases because of eating poisonous food (81.90%).

Death of a family often seen in poor family because of food adulteration, especially in

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 children. Diarrhea is one of the most common disease and many children are dying

because of it. Food adulteration is one of the major cause of diarrhea.

How much awareness people have about food adulteration?

I asked this question to know the level of awareness among people in our country about

this topic.

Family members are aware of adulterated

food

yes
no

Believe everything on lebels

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

In this survey we can clearly see that people are very much aware of food adulteration. But still

this is happening because both people and government are not taking action although they know

about it. There is another chart about it. It will clear more what is another cause of food

adulteration.

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 Choices over one another

Quality of the food

Price of the food

In earlier chart we have shown consumer awareness about food adulteration. But here is a

thing when comes to money often people choose money over quality. The reason is good

foods are expensive and government is highly responsible for it, also the sellers. They sell

high quality food with high price to gain more profit, which is bad.

People are not aware of food fraud- is this the only reason for food adulteration in

the country?

This question has asked because most of my data shows people are more responsible than any

other party. Yes, people are responsible for the lack of not standing alone to prevent food

adulteration, for not filling case when they are affected by it, for not aware enough when they

buy food. But, there are also many reasons.

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Firstly, businessmen, this people are doing food fraud every now and then to gain profit.

Government has rules and regulation but they do not implement it or take action. Farmers are

also responsible nowadays they put more fertilizer, insecticides, formalin and various kinds of

medicine to keep their crops/fruit/fish safe.

What is our duty to prevent adulteration of food?

Every problem comes with the solution, in this way this question occurs.

Prevent adulteration of food

We should stand together to

prevent it
Government should take
responsibility
Make ourself more conscious

This survey shows every one should take action both people and government. Mostly

government should have to make necessary arrangements. Strict law should be created also it has

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to be implemented. This whole supply process should be monitor by special task force. For

instance, big shopping mall like Wal-Mart does this every day. They have high quality food

product with much cheaper price. Sometimes if things get bad, they change the product instantly.

Because they care about consumers not money. Consumer also should be aware of their

consumer right. In Bangladesh most of the food products are approved by BSTI. BSTI should

also have to improve their quality for checking food quality. They should have to be more strict.

Government should call their entire researcher and conduct a research to find out how they can

develop a method to detect adulterated food easily.

Research Summary:

The data I collected matched my hypothesis. In respect to the people who are conscious enough

about food adulteration, also people who is trying to buy quality food avoiding color and price.

Well, food fraud was a very old topic for which our governments are very concern nowadays.

Nowadays we have advance technology. We can use those technologies to monitor food supply

chain and make it more pure than ever before.

This is about our health. If we eat good food we can do more work, we can be healthier and

stronger.

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My research shows that people know about food fraud but when they went to buy food or eat in a

restaurant they become not so much aware, also price plays a important factor in a country like

Bangladesh.

My findings also show that Bangladesh government has consumer right act and food safety act.

They just dont implement those things very strongly.

In some places my hypothesis was wrong; I thought many people were not aware of it. But it

looks like they are. But that is also in small amount and does not play any change to my

hypothesis about what I said in terms of consumer awareness.

Recommendation:

My research shows every one should take action both people and government. Mostly

government should have to make necessary arrangements. Strict law should be created also it has

to be implemented. This whole supply process should be monitor by special task force. For

instance, big shopping mall like Wal-Mart does this every day. They have high quality food

product with much cheaper price. Sometimes if things get bad, they change the product instantly.

Because they care about consumers not money.

Consumer also should be aware of their consumer right. In Bangladesh most of the food products

are approved by BSTI. BSTI should also have to improve their quality for checking food quality.

They should have to be stricter.

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Government should call their entire researcher and conduct a research to find out how they can

develop a method to detect adulterated food easily.

Conclusion:

An effective food safety framework is important to ensure safe food for consumers in a country.

Bangladesh is lacking it for a long time which resulted serious public health issues as discussed

in this paper. However, considering the current situations, it can be recommended that the

government requires a single well-drafted and up to date legislation that will provide for an

autonomous and apex food safety regulatory body to perform all kind of coordination. Also such

apex body needs to be built on the accountability and transparency that will be free from any

kind of bureaucratic complexities. Laws should be amended providing the higher penalties for

the wrongdoers as well as an efficient administrative enforcement regime need to be structured

based on persuasive tools.

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References:

1. Hoorfar, J. (Ed.). (2012). Case Studies in Food Safety and Authenticity (1st ed.). Denmark:

Woodhead Publishing.

It is a book regarding the identification and control of food contaminants rely on careful

investigation and implementation of appropriate management strategies. Using a wide range of

real-life examples, Case studies in food safety and authenticity provides a vital insight into the

practical application of strategies for control and prevention.

2. Nasreen, S., & Ahmed, Tahmeed. (2014). Food Adulteration and Consumer Awareness in

Dhaka City, 1995-2011. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 32(3), 452-464.

This article investigates the magnitude of food adulteration during 19952011 and consumer

awareness in Dhaka city.

3. Venugopal, K.J. (2008). Handbook of Food Safety in Spices. New Delhi: Woodhead

Publishing India.

This book talks about food safety in spices and provides guidelines for a food safety

management system in the spice and herb manufacturing process. It has relative information for

my research.

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4. Suchi, T. N. (2017, February 09). Food Adulteration: A serious health risk for Bangladesh.

Risingbd.com. Retrieved from http://www.risingbd.com/english/Food-adulteration-A-serious-

health-risk-for-Bangladesh/42249

Here Suchi talks about the food adulteration situation in Bangladesh. She provided data and gave

a very good report about food adulteration in Bangladesh.

5. Hussain, A. (2016, June 28). Food adulteration a cause of concern. Dhaka Tribune. Retrived

from http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/28/food-adulteration-cause-concern/

Hussain reported about top brand who served food to consumer and how they are corrupting on

food to gain money from customer.

6. Solaiman, S.M., & Ali, A.N.M.A. (2014, March 10). Extensive Food Adulteration in

Bangladesh: A Violation of Fundamental Human Rights and the States Binding Obligations.

Journal of Asian and African Studies, 45(5).

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021909614523547

Solaiman and Ali talks about binding obligations of the government to prevent food adulteration

and to protect peoples essential rights in this article. They highlights that numerous laws exist

almost invisibly in the country, and recommends that their enforcement be reinforced in order to

protect the people who are exposed to the overly contaminated food markets in Bangladesh.

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7. Ali, A.N.M.A. (2013). Food safety and public health issues in Bangladesh: a regulatory.

European Food and Feed Law Review, 8(1), 31-40.

https://www.k4health.org/sites/default/files/food_safety_and_public_health_issues_in_banglades

h-_a_regulatory.pdf

Ali said in his online research in Bangladesh, most of the foodstuffs, be they manufactured or

processed, are unsafe for consumption or adulterated to varying degrees. He also said this

problem persists at every level of the food chain from preparation to consumption.

8. Sah, V. (2014). CONSUMER AWARENESS ABOUT FOOD ADULTERATION. Online

Research, Pearl Academy.

https://issuu.com/kritikaahlawat/docs/consumer_awareness_about_food_adult

Vrindha Sah an undergraduate student did a research on Food Adulteration. She talked about

mainly food on subcontinent.

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