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WE Pakistanis love our street food.
And why not, as it’s some of the best in the world?
All too often, though, the price we pay for it can’t be measured in rupees, but in the number of times we have to dash to the toilet later. The reality is that our dhabas are among the filthiest anywhere. And it’s not just the roadside food stands that are unhygienic, but also our upscale eateries.
The water flowing from your tap is laden with a cocktail of germs.
These grim culinary facts have recently been placed under the spotlight after a series of raids in Lahore and Rawalpindi by inspectors from the Punjab Food Authority led by its director for operations, the admirable Ayesha Mumtaz. She and her teams say they have visited some 5,500 food outlets in Lahore, shutting down 250, and issuing notices to another 2,500.
Some of the offending establishments include restaurants at some of Lahore’s so-called five-star hotels. If you want proof that these expensive hotels in our part of the world can be lethal, just look at what’s happened to the South African cricket team currently touring Bangladesh, where 10 players had to be hospitalised with food poisoning.
Delhi Belly is the name foreigners give to the diarrhoea many of them pick up while on holiday in India. When foreign friends are visiting, I warn them never to eat uncooked vegetables, or brush their teeth with tap water.
But how many precautions can you reasonably take and still enjoy our wonderful cuisine? Even if restaurants were to maintain spotless kitchens, they will still be using tap water to wash dishes, as well as utensils and ingredients.
And our water can be deadly: some 40pc of deaths occur due to waterborne diseases, with 100 million cases of diarrhoea being reported every year. According to experts, some 250,00 Pakistani kids die every year due to illnesses caused by polluted water. This is hardly surprising as only 8pc of urban sewage water, and 1pc of our industrial waste water is treated.
When I picked up a nasty dose of hepatitis in Karachi over 20 years ago, all I wanted to do was die. I have never been as miserable before or since. Weeks passed before I recovered. Later, on a visit to London, a doctor told me the disease was endemic in South Asia because many people did not wash their hands properly after going to the toilet.
As hepatitis is spread through faecal matter, it literally makes its way through the food chain since all too often, plates at restaurants are washed in cold, dirty water sitting in a bucket or a tin. Either the dishwasher or one of the diners can easily pass on their germs. And unsurprisingly, cooks in overheated kitchens sweat profusely. Guess where this perspiration ends up?
After decades of neglect of the infrastructure, many of our ageing sewage and water pipes are leaking their contents into each other. So the water flowing from your tap — if you are lucky enough to get it, that is — is laden with a cocktail of germs.
Many people who boil water do not do so for long enough; I am told it should be boiled for at least 20 minutes before the germs are killed.
Given all these unpleasant facts, the ongoing campaign against filthy eateries in Punjab is to be welcomed. But why isn’t Sindh cleaning up its thousands of restaurants and street food joints? Surely they are as unhygienic as any in Punjab where the food authority has the chief minister’s full backing.
In Sindh, sadly, the PPP government and the bureaucracy are too busy ripping us off to bother about food safety. While laws exist to protect us from contaminated food and water, inspectors are happy to issue notices that can then be used to extract bribes. For instance, all restaurants are required to have their staff medically examined twice a year. But does anybody bother?
Thousands of deaths and millions of lost man-days can be prevented by very simple means. Sewage treatment plants, wherever installed, are allowed to fall into disrepair. Filters at water storage and treatment facilities are seldom replaced. Underground pipes rot away, never to be changed. Factories pump millions of gallons of chemical gunk into nearby rivers and streams, poisoning farms across the country.
Environmental laws are ignored, with inspectors paid off to look the other way. All this is happening in the full view of our politicians and journalists, but when did they seriously address these issues? A few reporters have occasionally highlighted these flagrant violations of food- and water-related violations but, by and large, they are swept under the carpet.
The problem is that the elites can buy bottled water, even though a lot of it is pretty suspect. They do not really care about the millions who suffer from hepatitis, typhoid and diarrhoea every year.
So next time you eat out, skip the salad.
Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2015
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