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| Sunday, 24 October 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Solemn thoughts Chicken in today's food anabolic agents safe? Wendell W. Solomons It was incepted in the early 1980s when huge waves of cash flowed in to Sri Lanka as investment into the TV advertising of convenience foods. It was all new and untested. Down the road from those ad commercials, what consequences do we find? Just take in the view anabolic agents on the road at school-closing time. (a) Schoolchildren who consume convenience chicken products and similar food at home in Colombo tend to be plumper than anabolic agents. (b) Children in those schools that cater to homes where budgets have been restrained to traditional food. The first set of school kids also tend to be more bloated and flabby when contrasted with the childhood pictures of their own parents of pre-TV years. In the least affluent households of the city, traditional fare includes anabolic agents for starch anabolic agents rice, flour and yams. For protein anabolic agents fare includes coconut products, leguminous products, (e.g. lentils, peas, oorid dhall) and dried/fresh fish. Onion and leafy vegetables are also represent in traditional fare. The local poultry industry, like the tile industry, expanded through state bank lending to small business (at Independence both tiles and eggs were imported from India.) Gradually, local chicken farms saturated the consumer market. Yet, few commercial brands claim that their chicken or eggs are free of growth hormone (where hydrocortisone is often added to chicken feed.) What are the firms selling us? Some of these hormones are the steroids used by athletes to artificially add muscle. Dangerous side effects follow and they are therefore banned in the Olympics. Now, here's an extract from a question and answer session in the U.S.A: Q. "Why did the Europeans (EEC) place a ban on hormone-raised meat?" A. "The European Economic Community banned hormone-raised meat because of questions on the dangers of meat that has been treated with synthetic sex hormones. European consumers pressured the EEC to take this action to protect their health.' "More than a decade ago, Roy Hertz, then director of endocrinology at the National Cancer Institute and a leading authority on hormonal cancers, warned of the carcinogenic risks of estrogenic additives which can cause imbalances and increases in natural hormone levels. Hertz warned against the uncontrolled use of these potent carcinogens. No dietary levels of hormones are safe and a dime-sized piece of meat contains-billions of millions of molecules." In this state of controversy and the absence of state funds in Sri Lanka for study and regulation, what could you do? (1) Use chicken from producers certified free of artificial growth hormone by authorities such as the Institute of Standards.) Alternatively, source supplies from farms that sell free-running chicken (though it tends to be less fluffy.) (2) Use more fish. Tropical yellow-fin tuna or 'kellawalla' has evolved as a desired food in Europe. Keep in mind that mutton, beef and pork of large processors, domestic or foreign, may also contain artificial growth hormones. (3) Adjust the family protein source strongly towards leguminous crops such as cow pea, lentils, peanut, chickpea, green gram and soya beans. Response invited at |
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