Food, poisons and pollutants

13Friday

CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION OF SABAH & LABUAN Food Action Safety Team (FAST).
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Dear friends,

This is for case study as I learned from a friend.

Someone X visiting Sabah and in Sandakan, his friend
brought him to eat the best steamed fish there at a famous
restaurant.  After a week or so, X returned to Peninsula and
then X's body developed red spots all over.

X went to see his doctor and the doctor did various tests
to identify the cause of the red spots.

Then X remembered he had eaten lots of good fish in Sandakan.
Then X arranged with his friend in Sandakan to get cooked samples
of the fish meals to be tested in KL.

This happened around the recent Chinese New Year.

The cooked samples was found to be formalin tainted.

This true story is to give us some food for thought as how
we are to go around our proposed project how best to
conduct our research for the Government and the public to
take cognisant of the worsening food scenario in Sabah.

How do we want to convince the Government and its agencies bent on denial?
How do we want to penalise the people who contaminate the food for money?

By doing that we can then bring home the message of the "poison" in
our foods that can lead to sickness and cancers for many people.

While the theory would sound good but the practical side may
be waylaid to find the maximum impact on the reversal of the
bad practices in food quality especially fish caught in the deep seas
that need to be "preserved" for the delivery to the market later in days.

The other point is that fish in the market are not branded or
packed to be identified when fish is perishable daily.

So to be effective we need to have on the spot testing rather than send
them to the accredited laboratories.  We know when flies are not
found in the fish market generally, there are danger signs of chemical pollutants.
Unlike the bombed fishes which can be easily identified with the broken
bones and rotten giblet (the bad ones), "preserved" fish and bombed fishes may give a strange
smell, but how do we be assured of our suspicion of added chemicals like formaldehyde?

Maybe we can have litmus papers to do on the spot tests? Are these available?

If FAST does not do that, we may encounter other problems like the source of the
fish or sea foods, the people to be accountable (not the fishmongers only but the
fisherman).

To resolve the question of proprietory of 'poisoned' fishes and seafood arising from
subsequent test results one or two weeks later, we need to establish a framework and
a system to be specific to pin point the people responsible so that such practices would
not recur.

In the Sandakan case of X, maybe the restaurant bought the fish supply from some
known direct suppliers, but I do not know if any further action was taken by the authority?
Or are the customers still served with the 'poisoned' food to make good money?  I think X
must have consumed too much within days as the body may tolerate it if consumed
moderately as those steamed fish meals are not cheap for most people.
Actually every day we consume pollutants via the water and the air unknown
and known to us, and we punish ourselves with sicknesses.

Do our food experts have any advice how to find instant answers for confirming 'poisoned' foods at minimum
costs as there are so much foods to be tested daily 24/7/365?  We need a superior test methodology.

I hope this piece of mind can help FAST to be effective and a win-win scenario is achievable for all
-the suppliers, the middle man, the foods processors/cooks, and the consumers -
in the context of domestic and export markets.  We may only take a sample of some food items but
the rest are then sold and consumed.

Lets brainstorm with emails rather than at meetings when many people cannot make it to be present.
At the meetings, we can then confirm the most appropriate measures quickly.

All contributions are appreciated.  We are aware of the big task but we need to do something fast the
FAST way.

Thanks for reading,

Joshua Kong
Deputy President of CASH