Toxins at the Table

Every meal could carry hidden toxins, turning ordinary Kashmiri kitchens into sites of long-term risk.

- Peerzada Faizan Gul

Kashmir's food markets have been hit hard in recent weeks. Raids have revealed warehouses full of spoiled meat, consignments treated with industrial chemicals, and chickens pumped with antibiotics.

Some vendors have been caught reprocessing rotten meat or overcooking it to hide its age before selling it to unsuspecting families.

These troubling discoveries point to a larger public health problem, one that is silently fuelling a growing cancer risk in the valley.

The danger goes beyond stomach infections or short-term food poisoning.

Research shows a clear connection between contaminated or processed meat and cancer, especially cancers of the digestive system.

The problem often begins with chemicals used to make meat look fresh. Cheap preservatives usually rely on nitrites and nitrates.

Inside the meat, these compounds react with natural molecules to form N-nitroso compounds, or NOCs. These chemicals are well-known carcinogens, strongly linked to colorectal and stomach cancers.

When vendors work with meat that's already starting to spoil, they often cook it at very high heat or char it to hide the taste. This process creates another set of carcinogens: heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).