LUST for LIFE

While having breakfast with a colleague, she lamented: “Eat we die, don’t eat also die” – literal translation from Cantonese to English. She was referring to the front page report in the New Straits Times (27 Aug) about vegetables that were tested positive to be “highly contaminated with carcinogenic pesticide residues”. The test, conducted by the Institute for Medical Research and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, was done on samples taken from the Selayang wholesale market, which “supplies to about three-quarters of the hypermarkets, wet markets, night markets and grocery stores in the state”. I presume it also covers Kuala Lumpur.

We are slowly being chemically ‘poisoned’. Hello, are the authorities concerned sleeping on the job?
Although the report pointed out that the tests were done on unwashed vegetables, this is hardly reassuring at all. How many households thoroughly wash or soak their vegetables in water? Or for that matter, I suspect that most restaurant staff only rinse the vegetables, and in the same container of water, before the chefs cook or fry them.

Now, imagine a plate of mouth-watering salad with fresh-looking, juicy vegetables on your table. Heck, looks can be so deceiving. Eat we die, don’t eat also die.