Following
a recent publication by a local daily. It is evident that Kenyans have
been turned into guinea pigs or commercial pigs for that matter. Kenyans
are literally feeding on anything from transformer oil to lead to
hydrogen peroxide, only to fatten the wallets of unscrupulous business
people. These harmful chemicals are laced on foods that most people will
not be able to do without, such as sukuma wiki, milk, mandazis, and
chips.The chips and mandazis you love so much might have been fried in transformer oil, your favorite sukuma wiki might be full of lead and your “fresh” milk may be a concoction of formalin, urea, hydrogen peroxide and antibiotics.
It is saddening to realize how low people’s morals have descended in their quest of getting rich, fuelled by the unquenchable greed for quick money. People have become morally disenfranchised such that a Kenyan can sell another Kenyan contaminated food without a second thought while presented with an opportunity.
My attention has been drawn to the excessive use of preservatives in milk with the intention of hampering bacterial spoilage in milk to increase the shelf life of the product. Being a dairy person, I am saddened by the ignorant, sometimes arrogant, usage of these preservatives in milk by the unscrupulous dealers who are out to make a quick shilling.
Here is how bacteria spoil milk, some spoilage types are poisonous.
You see, the quality of your favorite “fresh milk” may be so wanting that certain types of bacteria may refuse to eat it (or die of eating it) but you will gladly pay for it from your favorite vendor because you do not know. In Naivasha for instance, it was reported in the Standard Newspaper that milk hawkers add such chemicals as urea, formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide into the milk to improve the shelf life of this precious commodity. The “heavy presence” of regulatory agencies, the Kenya Dairy Board to be specific, has not helped very much.
How do these chemicals work and what are their effects?
Formalin is a disinfectant and a preservative used for preserving lab specimen and cadavers. Unscrupulous milk dealers will add some amount of this chemical into the milk to increase the shelf life of the product; therefore, shaving off their refrigeration costs.
Formalin is a dangerous chemical that can increase your chances of getting certain types of cancer, will lead to skin and eye irritations and corrode the gastro-intestinal tract. If you take a lethal dose of this chemical or take it for prolonged period, you may have to consider kidney transplant because your kidney is likely to fail when you least expect it.
Hydrogen peroxide is perhaps the most widespread chemical preservative used in milk. This chemical is an excellent preservative when used correctly due to its strong oxidation potential. It oxidizes the bacteria in milk therefore hampering their growth, which increases the shelf life of milk.
The problem with hawkers is that, they use generous amounts of industrial grade hydrogen peroxide, whose residual effect lasts longer than is necessary. As such, you end up with copious amounts of this chemical in your milk. Consumption of milk that has been adulterated with hydrogen peroxide will affect your heartbeat; irritate the mucous membranes in your gastro-intestinal tract and cause stomach and intestinal ailments. The oxidation process will continue in your system leading to early aging and premature death.
This is how to check for formalin in your milk.
You have probably heard of those cows that produce over 45 litres of milk per day. The thing is, going by the breeds of cows we have in Kenya and management practices, 45 litres per day is not an easy feat for the average farmer. What most of these farmers do to achieve such levels of productivity is to inject their cows with oxytocin, which is a hormone that stimulates milk production. This hormone can be easily obtained from shops and the farmers, oblivious of its negative effects, will use it without the directions of a veterinary officer due to the end they intend to achieve (read huge profits). What follows is the contamination of the milk from these “high producers” with traces of this hormone.
When people consume milk that has been contaminated by oxytocin, what happens next is the hormonal imbalance in men, women and children. That is when we start seeing premature development of breasts in young girls, women and young girls start getting irregular menstruation, males develop abnormally big breasts, and kidney complications set in, memory loss, sight impairment, irregular blood pressure and such like complications. If you are keen on preserving your health and that of your family, you will avoid adulterated milk as you would a plague.
I do not think there is need to remind you of the dangers of taking antibiotics without the doctor’s prescription because you are already aware that you will lose your immunity against bacterial infections with prolonged usage. The disease causing bacteria will develop resistance and pass the trait to their offspring. The bacterial generation that will result from this mutant generation will be impossible to control, which may just be the doom of humanity.
