Wheat Cheats

The news is out on papers today- the bread we eat contains cancer containing additives says a study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Not just that, they include one additive that can cause thyroid disorders too. So why will any one add such chemicals in our bread? How do they benefit? I had highlighted this issue in one of my blog post three years ago- it went unnoticed. Now that the issue is in news- I felt it's time to reiterate this fact.

Wheat is not the healthiest of the grains available. Despite all the millions spent touting wheat to be a wholesome grain, nutritionally it is just a mediocre grain. Finger millet (Ragi), Sorghum (Jowar), Pearl millet (Bajra ) etc are much more nutrient dense than wheat.

Wheat however has a protein that makes it a delight for bakers and makers of food to use it- that protein is called 'gluten'. Gluten, is a protein that can link up with neighboring gluten making a long chain of gluten proteins . Because of this property, wheat has a stringy texture and one can make lovely shapes out of it. You can make stringy noodles, crispy thin crackers, spongy breads, soft cakes, the list is endless. Hence when you visit a supermarket- more than 85% of the food products have wheat in some or the other form. All thanks to gluten.

Like I mentioned earlier, the gluten proteins need to link with each other. To make a link like this gluten requires oxygen. Traditionally, after wheat was milled, it was aged in air for a few weeks. As the flour aged in contact with the air, its gluten and baking properties improved. Then came the time of fast paced production and cut throat competition. Bakers and manufactures where looking for methods to fasten production of their products and soon they got their answers.

Ageing wheat required space and time- both a premium in today's world. So to save time and money, millers began artificially oxidizing (adding oxygen) their flour. Oxidisers like Chlorine gas, pottasium bromate and others. It not only improved that binding of wheat but also saved a lot of time and ultimately money for the bakers.

These additives are given very neutral sounding names in the list of ingredients. They may be called dough improves, dough conditioners and so on. But the harm they do to your organs are conveniently brushed off.

Not just to improve binding, but also to make wheat look white- wheat is bleached with chlorine. This process has a side-effect of producing a chemical called Alloxan (No one checks for it- but you can be assured your flour has it). Alloxan selectively destroys the insulin producing cells (beta-cells) in the pancreas- which causes diabetes. Studies so far have observed this in rodents and many other animal species. Although I could not find any study done on humans- there is a very good possibility that one day news may break out that wheat can actually cause diabetes.

Meanwhile , India allows wheat makers to use potassium bromate and pottasium iodate in the making of wheat. There is absolutely no need for it, other than for the profitability of bakers.

Not just breads- rest assured these residues will be present in noodles, biscuits, cakes and all other wheat products. Finally the choice of consumption is in our hands- in a country like India where we boast of a plethora of grains, do we continue remaining blind to the hazards of today's wheat production or do we choose to care for ourselves, our children, our loved ones and switch to the alternate grains available to us. Our choice will determine the future of not only our health, but of our children too. A choice that is in our hands. 

The Cost of Sugar.

Yesterday I posted on how we made sun evaporated sugar at home. One of the reasons why we felt the need to stop using processed sugar and use our own sugar was because consumption of sugar and jaggery come with a price tag- that of our health. But that is not what this post is about- Sugar production comes at another great cost- that of environment and our nation.
When the country is facing an acute water scarcity- sugar is something we cannot afford to produce and export. But we do it and continue supporting a luxury that we cannot afford.

It takes 2100 liters of water to produce 1 kg of sugar. This means that in a state like Maharashtra, which is facing acute drought, sugarcane occupies 4% of the cropped area but consumes 70% of irrigated water.
So every gram of sugar requires 2.1 liters of water, which means- A 330 ml of Coca-Cola can, which has 35 grams of sugar (7 teaspoons) took 73 liters of water just to make it sweet. An India Today report points out that the daily requirement of water in Latur is 85 liters per person. So every time one drinks a can of coke- crudely putting, one is robbing a person's entire day's supply of water !!!
Now that's how demanding our sweet tooth could be.

In 2014-2015, India produced around 28 million tonnes of sugar-  3.7 million tonnes more than demand. This excess sugar was exported and when we export sugar, we are essentially exporting water. A commodity that we are facing acute shortage of.

Like I mentioned above it takes 2.1 million liters of water to produce one ton of sugar. So when we exported 3.7 million tonnes of sugar we exported 7770 billion liters of water. Assuming a district like Latur requires 209 million liters of water a day, we exported 37,177 days of water requirement of Latur. To put it in simply, "India's one year of sugar exports, took away a districts century worth of water supply"

So not just your health- sugar can strip away a nation's vital resource too. Take this challenge- Try and see if you can completely stay away from processed sugar. If  you can, you will be doing a great service to yourself and the country. 

The GDP Obsession

A few days ago the Central Statistics Office (CSO), declared the GDP for the period October to December 2015. India grew by 7.3% they said. Looking at the quarterly results of listed companies, it's hard to believe the 7.3% number, but that's another story for some other day. This post is to express my views on the concept of GDP itself.
The gross domestic product, (GDP), is today blindly used as a standard measure of success by every one- from the economist to the politician. It can be such a misused tool in the hands of the politicians, that the Indian government last year tweaked the formula to calculate the GDP so that the numbers showed the government performance in better light .
GDP counts the value of goods and services made in a country each year. But it has a glaring problem, it leaves out some really important facets of reality. For starters, GDP doesn’t account for the unequal and unfair distribution of wealth or look at how healthy, satisfied, or fulfilled people are. That’s why the GDP of India has grown at more than 5% and China's by more than 10% for years while the incomes of its workers have not grown in the same time period—the wealth has got stuck at one spot in the system.
But the biggest problem with how the GDP is calculated is that the true ecological and social costs of growth are not accounted for. Industries are usually permitted to “externalize costs,” which is a fancy phrase economists use to describe the fact that, while companies are busy producing and selling goods, they’re not paying for, or even tracking the side-effects they cause, like contaminating groundwater, exposing communities to carcinogens, or polluting the air.
So GDP counts activities that cause pollution and cancer (such as factories making pesticides or PVC) as well as activities to clean up that pollution and treat the cancer (such as environmental remediation and medical care), there is no deduction in the GDP for the pollution released into the air, soil or water or the loss of a forest.
I read a very interesting, but true story in the book Deep Economy by Bill McKibben which highlights the failure of GDP to measure success: "for years in Africa, the non-native water hyacinth was clogging waterways, and herbicides had done nothing to solve the problem. Then someone discovered that dried water hyacinth made great material for growing highly nutritious mushrooms, and that when the mushrooms broke down the cellulose in the hyacinths, it made a great medium for earthworms. The worms chomped that down and created high-quality fertilizer, then were themselves feed for chickens. The chickens, of course, provided people with eggs, while their droppings could be used to fuel biogas digesters that produced power, and this reduced the need to cut down more trees for firewood from the already deforested regions in that part of Africa. Because monetary transactions—like the purchase of fertilizer—were reduced, a solution like this actually shows up on a measure like GDP as diminished growth"- Shocking, but true. Yet it’s clear to anyone with eyes, a brain, and a heart that the hyacinth-mushroom-worm-chicken solution is true progress: healthy and sensible.
So in a blind race to compete for a higher GDP we are completely ignoring the effects it is having on our environment. As I experienced the air in China, during my short visits there, I have come to believe that GDP is gross destructive product rather than gross domestic product.

Have a nice day.