Homo sapiens - Carcinogen of The planet Earth !!

Vignesh Kalyanasundaram

When I was studying my Grade 7, I thought the 10 Mark question comprising the consequences of breaking an eco-food chain was mere theory and never that it will happen someday. Felt the Biologists were jobless and kept those topics just to burden my school days !!

But today I’m stunned to see it happening in front of my eyes and ashamed to realize how worse we have treated our fellow living beings !! We should soon turn to Organic farming and treat livestock in a more organic way to save our eco-system before things get worse. 

The following video is a typical example of how we are bringing the count of Vultures down:

https://www.facebook.com/itmatters.news/videos/1755162621406145/

The alarming factor is, it is the fastest population collapse of any bird species in recorded history. While I was worryingly searching why is that anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac causing this, suddenly something shook my mind. Lately, we have come across similar news where Food producers be it packed or fresh products like vegetables, fruits, meat etc using many such antibiotics, chemicals etc. so invariably we will also have such effect and in fact, we are already undergoing the consequences of such actions.

One such incident is sellers injecting Erythrosine to make the Watermelons redder. Adulteration isn’t a new thing and we have this for ages now but what is more concerning is the entry of chemical agents which the food manufacturers, vendors are using for the past decade or so. They aren’t worried about the quality of food and ethics has no role to play in today’s market. Substances like Erythrosine aren’t just harmful to the human body but also dangerous and can cause cancer.

Money involvement in such incidents is huge and sadly even Government fails to regulate such things. Recently The Supreme court of India banned a famous noodles brand and issued a notice to its parent company citing hazardous ingredients in it. But to everyone’s surprise, they are back to business now and the irony is most of us know it is still not good to eat !!

Another familiar case is that of Broiler Chicken and how many of us know that if we test a broiler chicken specimen we could detect traces of several antibiotics like Oxytetracycline, Chlortetracycline etc. One obvious question for everyone is how these antibiotics affect Human body ?. Let me explain with myself being the example J right from my childhood I am afraid of medicines and had a tough time swallowing tablets every time (to be honest still having trouble). One good thing because of this habit is I don’t take medicines often in fact the number of medicines I have taken all these years could be counted. Of course, for any major health problem I used to take but not for headaches, body pains, general cold etc

But once I grew up for colds I started taking tablets and whenever I take any antibiotic, I can get rid of the cold in 1 day. Then I sensed that the immunity power of my body is high and the antibiotic also works well because all these years I made my body fight the germs and didn’t use any antibiotics. So when I take those drugs now it is certainly working for me and this isn’t the case for people who take medicines/antibiotics often from their childhood.

A similar argument holds good for broiler chicken scenario as well where the chickens are injected antibiotics like Baytril in the poultry farms to make them immune against e.coli infection and to increase their size in a short span. So their body has an excess of antibiotics traces and when we take them often our body also gets that. In the long term, our body gets used to these antibiotics which will eventually lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria thus harming our body.

Here comes another example - just think when was the last time you saw a mango having a bug inside ? Certainly I am not seeing such Mangoes lately and the reason is obvious. Bugs can survive in naturally grown mango and they cannot do in a Hybrid one which is using pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

Well, these are few examples I am pointing at out of our day-to-day life but we have several other instances where we spoil this ecosystem not only destroying many species of plants and animals but also the mankind. How could this be mitigated would be an obvious question for everyone and few things I have started following are:

·         Strictly NO to Broiler chicken but may take once in a month that too in any inevitable situations like while having food at Guests home, hotel visits with friends etc.

·         Use more of the natural breed of vegetables/fruits and not hybrid variety. Example: Country Tomato, Onion etc.

·         Started using Gingelly Oil (Nallennai) and Coconut oil made out of Sekku naturally.

·         Stopped eating at KFC completely and eating Pizzas once in a quarter J 

·         The last time I had carbonated drink was several months back and have stopped taking it completely.

Needless to say, it is high time to change our approach towards farming, food habits and the manner in which we treat/feed other living beings around us. This has to happen sooner rather than later so that co-existence amongst various species exists and living can be better on this planet for all.

I owe a lot to Nammalvar, Dr.Sivaraman, and Seeman for making me understand many facts which are explained above and letting everyone know the politics behind the food industry, farming etc.

Also, people who can understand the Tamil language can go through my post in Facebook for similar info:

https://www.facebook.com/vignesh.kalyanasundaram/posts/1156369237749360?comment_id=1177314585654825&notif_t=like&notif_id=1465902367227554

Vignesh Kalyanasundaram is an Information Technology Analyst by Profession, Traveller, and a Budding Blogger.