1 of the 50 facts

Honestly speaking, I have never finished reading a book. The closest was Tuesdays with Morrie. But this changed about a month ago when I picked up a book from my sis-in-law’s room. The title of the book was “50 facts that should change the world” by Jessica Williams.

Therein lies much information that will make you think about life and how screwed up we are. This book inspired me to write Disparities Insanities Inhumanities, most of the stats I quoted in that post are from this book.

Having said that, humans are forgetful selfish creatures. We tend to forget meaningful and heart warming things in life and only care about issues that directly affect us. So put aside the facts about how many people are deprived of food, robbed of their lives, deprived of their rights, etc. Probably that’s why the book is called “50 facts that should change the world” and not “50 facts that will change the world”.

So let’s put on our true selfish nature and talk about 1 fact that directly affects us.

1 of the facts in that book states that people in industrialised countries eat between 6kg and 7kg of food additives every year. We Malaysians may not be living in what is considered as an “industrialised country”, but I am sure our intake of food additives is close enough.

If you look at the ingredient list a typical “Made in Malaysia” type of food produce, you should see things that you are familiar with and then at the end of it, you have the mother of all ingredients… “…dan bahan pewarna dan pengawet yang dibenarkan” (permitted colouring and preservatives). So on average, you may have eaten up to 7kg of these “pewarna dan pengawet yang dibenarkan”.

That’s the Malaysia Boleh type of product.

I am now looking at a product of Singapore and they have some extra-terrestrial-like name in their ingredients such as Sodium Sillicoaluminate, Sodium Casseinate, Stabiliser E340ii, Stabiliser E451i, Emulsifier E 472e, Emulsifier E471 and 7 more names which I can’t pronounce. This will certainly fail the 2nd commandment of 12C 4 HE, but I am sure many of us don’t care.

We might say the Singaporeans are “kiasu” as they must list out everything instead of saving printing cost and just lump everything as “pewarna dan pengawet yang dibenarkan” but at least they know the name of the stuff they are eating. For those who eat Malaysian products, do you even know what you are eating?

That aside, we all know that all sorts of chemicals and additives exist in our food and they are of course, maintained at a “permissible” level. But like the good ‘ol Malay saying… “Sikit-sikit, lama-lama jadi bukit” (little by little, soon becomes a hill), the accumulative amount of chemicals and additives that we eat is astonishing. The “bukit” that we are talking about here is a total of 6kg to 7kg a year.

In a world where profits is the number 1 priority, you have no idea what is inside the food that you eat to make them look better, taste better and last longer. All I know is that when I am thirsty, I should reach for water instead of a proclaimed thirst quenching fizzy drink.

But we all know what we should do, whether we will do it is another matter altogether.


1 year ago… More struggles