DHAKA, Feb 2, 2025 (BSS) – The Food Ministry today said five percent of the country’s population becomes ill with diarrhea due to unsafe food, which appears to be a major challenge even for exporting food abroad.

“Some 5 percent people somehow become ill with diarrhea everyday because of unsafe food they consume,” Food Secretary Masudul Hassan told a seminar staged by Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) in the capital.

He said aconite contaminations even made vegetables unsafe affecting their exports. 

BFSA’s chairman Zakaria (one name) said according to the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrhea kills 80 people daily and 30,000 people annually in Bangladesh with unsafe food being a major cause of the disease.

He said BFSA off late invented a “Ludo game” to motivate children to consume safe food as part the state-run organisation’s motivational campaign.

The food secretary said, there was no scope of consider food, health and wellness separately as those are integrated issues and despite the challenges “one must consume safe food to stay healthy”.

He, however, said food safety now appeared as a global concern posing a question how many of the world’s 700 billion people were consuming safe food.

Dhaka University’s Institute of Food and Nutrition Sciences Institute professor Dr Khaleda Islam made the keynote presentation saying “one in every 10 people gets sick due to unsafe food daily”.

She said unsafe food causes the death of 420,000 children under the age of five in the world, while it kills 35,000 people die every year in Bangladesh.

Khaleda said a 2021 study of the institute she works for found 66.67 percent adulteration in ghee, 43.75 percent in jiggery or molasses, 33.33 percent in honey, 28.57 percent in sweets, 27.93 percent in turmeric and 16.67 percent in powdered milk.

According to the study the adulteration even do not spare salt, pulses, rice and chilly as it found five percent toxic elements in pulses/chickpeas, 8.33 percent in rice, 14.63 percent in chili, 16.67 percent in powdered milk and 17.33 percent in salt.

Khaleda suggested people could yet minimize food toxicity by keeping them clean, segregating cooked and raw food, covering and using safe water during cooking and keeping them at the right temperature.

"One should check the food colour when he or she buys fruits and vegetables. Seasonal fruits and vegetables should be bought and rotten or smelly food shouldn’t be bought,” she sdaid.

BFSA officials and experts who joined the seminar coinciding with the National Safe Food Day-2025 said various factors emerged as obstacles in ensuring food safety though there was no alternative to safe food to ensure nutrition.

Additional Food Secretary Pradeep Kumar Das, Director General of Food M Abdul Khaleque, Agriculture Ministry’s Additional Secretary Ahmed Faysal Imam also spoke at the seminar titled “Let the food be safe, let the people be healthy”, held at the lecture hall of Super Specialized Hospital in the capital.

Around 200 people, including food ministry officials, academics, researchers, doctors, food traders, civil society representatives and media personnel, were present.