He took on Big Bad Coke. Then he rapped King Khan on the knuckles for smoking on screen. Now, I wish Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, our evangelical health minister, would launch his promised crusade on junk food.

The time is now. Recently, a WHO report estimated that 2.6 billion children worldwide will suffer from obesity and its unholy trinity — diabetes, heart disease and chronic arthritis — by 2010, an epidemic that will strain the health care system of many countries. Last week, the Consumer Guidance Society of India peeked into the tiffins of 2,000 Indian kids to find the culprits — packets of innocuous crisps, innocent biscuits and instant noodles.

How many of us know that MSG, a flavour enhancing ‘excitotoxin’ which causes asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is found in practically every bottled, frozen, boxed, canned, or commercially prepared food? That the sugar in those ‘healthy’ digestive biscuits is the chief cause of hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder and violent behaviour? That the seemingly wholesome ‘vegetable oil’ in packaged crisps can clog young arteries and damage immature livers? Or that many ‘permitted’ class II preservatives, food colours and stabilisers like carrageenan, are used to create cancer cells in a laboratory?

There are over 3000 food additives, many of them un-researched, unregulated, and extremely addictive. Worse, in children, their damage is disproportionately higher, not only because kids are twice as susceptible to persuasive packaging as adults, but because their organs, responsible for detoxifying or removing harmful substances, are only half as effective as ours.

... contd.