Bangladesh has for long been an extremely food-deficit country.

People here have practised to eat and drink a large number of items that contain many toxic substances that are harmful to health. These injurlpus materials are not simply toxins, goiterogenic principles or flatulence factors 'hat are inherent in foods or the microbial toxins that find easy access to foods and reduce or destroy their values. They are also chemical fertilizers and pesticides whose untimely or excess application during pre-and post-harvest perfod cause Immediate harm to ।in-related biological species including fish, prawn frogs, fauna and the livestock. Sometimes these substances remain unmetabolized at dose levels that are harmful and cause a host of diseases and metabolic disorders tn man. In addition to these toxic substances a large number of food contaminants, along with many non permissible food flavours and colouring matters, have started to find their entry Into the food

Liquid oils contain unsaturated fatty acids Generally they have CIS configuration and low melting point. They are easily metabolised in the body In contrast, solid fats having trans-configuration and high melting point mostly contain saturated fatty acids and are difficult to be metabolized. Extremely high melting point solid fats form lumps in the blood vessel If. somehow or other, they could be administered into the blood stream.

Beef oil. beef tallow or < ooklng fat have high melting points. A portion of them accumulate in the body throughout life and store in them many fat soluble poisons. Man finds H difficult to metabolize these materials Occasionally free radicals are generated from these substances and these radicals cause Irreparable damages to liver, heart, brain and almost all other body organs Other saturated fats in elude Banaspatl. semi solid palm oil and artificially-made butter oil that have high melting points. Allowable melting point limit for most of these

products is 37 2 C. The materials available in Bangladesh market ha^e melting point as high as 48 C. They have good grains and are easy to use in making breads, biscuits, pastries. cakes.'sweetmeats, toffees. lozenges. chocolate products and the like.

Fat treated foods ar* attractive. Their look deceive the eyes and the taste please the tongue, but they contain or help produce cholesterol and free radicals. These are principally responsible for causing cancer and heart and liver ailments.

Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) has been giving operational funding supports to the various agriculture-based research institutes to develop and introduce technologies that help Increase food production and upgrade nutritional standards of the people of Bangladesh. A strategy plan, based on a per caput per day calorie Intake of 2600 from 1172g food. Is now being finalized (Table 1).

With the execution of BARC s proposed strategy plan poverty alleviation at grassroot level would substantially be met through peoples part let pa tlon In increased agricultural production and development of agro-based Industry that would increase export, reduce import and afford Import substitution and. in addition, augment food consumption and Improve nutritional status of the people. Based on BARC s previous strategy plan the work has already begun and

impact in regard to improving the food security has started to be felt.

As the country is iparching towards food self-sufficiency, it is necessary that the people Should now start to know the various components of food safety. In this context a point must, of necessary, be emphasised that certain high yielding varieties of crops such as rice undergo digestion and absorption at a very fast or very slow rate. The first category of food may lead to loading of blood with an amount of sugar at much excess a level than what the insulin produced in the body can accommodate. This results in Induced diabetes. The second category of foods, due to their prolonged presence in the intestine awaiting breakdown by gut microflora, helps multiply a host of microorganisms that produce gas. the upward thrust of which has got a deleterious effect on patients having heart diseases.

Food safety has. therefore, to be done by making standards specifications. These are the basic and essential components of any Food ' Safety Programme. Their mandate extends across the horizon to end users who ordinarily care for a guaranteed label declaration that Includes principal characteristics of the product. The parametres could include a large number of characteristics. Some of them, which are essential in terms of scope and dimension for any food safety programme, are moisture, colour, taste, flavour, acid

value, periodxlde value, iodine value, saponification value, sand. dirt, acid insoluble ash. food toxins, microbial toxins, and heavy metals.

. In a buyers’ market the label declaration'has to be 100 per cent correct. In a sellers’ market this, however, is not always true. A consumer is often cheated. He. therefore, needs protection. A responsive Government undertakers to give the intended protection through an institutional arrangement. the quality testing facilities of which are available at or near his door-step, if necessary, through collaborative participation of a number of government and non-governmental bodies, sample collectors' house. Inspectorate's and laboratories. This Is the second line activity of the food safety programme, as no rule or standard lo afford safety of food is enforceable ordinarily without recognised external supervision.

In regard to products in whose case an elaborative procedure requiring large-scale sampling and testing is needed for quality certification, process simplification and mass production techniques are applied. Allotment of batch or code number to a material produced at a particular moment in ttme Is important here. A system of quality certification marking by the manufacture. under license from the authority, undertaking to produce his goods conforming to set standards specifications is the key factor In this case. This provides for confidence building in a buyers' market, as

the consumers easily get satisfied with the label declaration containing the embossed stan dard mark. This is a self-imposed mechanism for the control of quality • and Is worldwide accepted.

National and regional standards institutions which deal with the standardisation work of the materials produced in their particular country or region tend to safeguard their interest most. If they happen to be the producers of primary goods they do not generally like to accept rigorous quality control provisions for their products from the international standardisation organisations which look after the Interest of multi-national buyers.

Formulation of food rules or standards specifications for items of food necessitates voluntary participation of producers. consumers, technologists, testing authorities, trade, commerce and Industry. Enforcement procedure is. however, not perfect enough. All sellers do not fully know what they sell and most of the consumers have essentially no idea as to what is good or what is bad. The dominant factor in the market is the price. Bad traders use this as a pretext to sell adulterated goods giving them arbitrary identification numbers such as No. 1. No. 2 and No. 3. Glaring examples of this are No. 1 soybean oil and No. 1 mustard oil (which probably is methyl isothiocyanate poison added oil). There are other products such as icecream and condensed milk which do not $t all contain any milk fat.

High quality has naturally a high price. There should be an acceptable mechanism to attain this. Probably this Is the most essential part of all the essential components of a food safety programme- It is heartening to know that the Government proposes to come up with legislation to safeguard consumer Interest as regards, among others, to the quality and the price.

The ultimate Job of a food safety programme is technical, and a technically qualified and experienced pilot may alone understand what the society requires of him and, under a situation of resources constraint. how much collaborative involvement of all concerned he is able to organise to do the Job beat. A team of supportive elders or scientists emeritus may often yield bet-.ter results

The writer ts Director (Nutrition), Bangladesh Agrtcut ' twal Research Council. Dhaka