Given pad kaprao gai (stir-fried chicken with holy basil) is one of the trademarks of Thai cuisine, to say it is many people's favourite dish is probably an understatement. I, for one, used to eat it almost everyday.
But recently, it has become almost impossible to order. Earlier this year, holy basil nabbed the top spot on a chart that parades vegetables rich in pesticides sampled from fresh markets and supermarkets around town by an NGO called Thailand Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-Pan).
It outnumbered the yard-long bean, which had long been the poster vegetable for toxic levels, by half with 62.5% more than its Maximum Residue Limits. You may ask, therefore, how can this "holy" vegetable, in fact, be so bad? The problem, however, lies not with the toxic pesticides being used in holy basil, cucumber, morning glory and cabbage. The issue is much more frightening.
Thailand imports about 155 kinds of pesticides to use in farming, which costs 18 billion baht a year. Five of which (carbofuran, methomyl, clopirifos, glyphosate and paraquat) have been classified as "virulent and should be banned as soon as possible", by Thai-Pan.
Well, let's not worry about the names of the pesticides. Let's worry about how these pesticides are still being used in Thailand, when they have been banned by many others, including neighbouring countries. What is an agriculturally proud country like Thailand doing?
If you have started to think that you may not be able to enjoy eating vegetables at your next meal, there is a glimmer of hope. Thai-Pan has launched a petition against using these chemicals and has collected more than 1,000 signatures and plans to march to the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives to meet with the minister next month.
Thailand relies so much on exporting its agricultural products that taking action against pesticides cannot possibly be the wrong call.
Pesticides do more harm than good and several health organisations have constantly warned the public of health dangers. Last month, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer announced that DDT, or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, could lead to cancer, with scientific evidence linking it to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, testicular cancer and liver cancer.
Less than a week earlier, the Public Health Institute in Berkeley in California released a study which directly linked breast cancer in humans to DDT, which was banned in many countries decades ago, yet continues to be widely used in Africa and Asia.
If we care about our health at all, we would not find it ridiculous to say that we want to live in a country that takes the issue of pesticides seriously. If pesticides continue to be part of the agricultural world, can we, at least, ask for better pesticides, with less risk?
This is clearly a national crisis because it concerns pad kaprao, the dish the entire nation loves more than anything else.
Duangphat Sitthipat is a feature writer for Bangkok Post's Life section.