Dark facts of Food Adulteration in India.
Food adulteration is one of the serious challenges in the world. Despite various measures and penalties, the problem continues to remain a big challenge, There are lot of weird practices in food adulteration, these practices cause lot of permanent health issues.
What is food adulteration?
Food adulteration is an act of adding or mixing poor quality, inferior, harmful, substandard, useless, or unnecessary substances into foods. This act of spoiling the nature and quality of food items is considered food adulteration.
What are the types of food adulteration?
Milk Adulteration
Milk is considered to be the ‘ideal food’ because of its abundant nutrients required by both infants and adults, Milk and dairy product adulteration came into global concern after the breakthrough of melamine contamination in Chinese infant milk products in 2008, Unfortunately, milk is very easily adulterated throughout the world.
Some of the major adulterants in milk having serious adverse health effect are urea, formalin, detergents, ammonium sulphate, boric acid, caustic soda, benzoic acid, salicylic acid, hydrogen peroxide, sugars and melamine.
Possible reasons for adulteration are the demand and supply gap, the perishable nature of milk, the low purchasing capability of customers, and the lack of suitable detection tests.
Adulteration of oils
India’s top food regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or FSSAI, has said 2.42% of the 4,461 cooking oil samples it tested were non-compliant on account of safety standards, while 24.2% samples failed to clear quality metrics, indicating possible adulteration of cooking oils in the market.
Adulterated oils contain 70% palm oil mixed with unidentified oil essence to give desired flavor and aroma, there are multiple loop holes in the legislation which oil traders are taking advantage of it. There have been instances of packets of sunflower, soybean and groundnut containing cheap cotton seed oil.
Milkfat is a highly valuable and costlier product, Therefore it is highly prone to adulteration with cheaper oils/fats such as vegetable oils, animal depot fats, hydrogenated fats, inte-resterified fats and inedible mineral oils etc. has economic advantages when the product is not labeled accordingly.
Consumers are lack o awareness on the food adulteration majorly in low income groups exploitation is more.
FOOD ARTICLES | ADULTERANTS | HARMFUL EFFECTS |
Bengal Gram dhal & Thoor Dhal | Kesai dhal | lahyrism cancer |
Tea | Used tea leaves processed and coloured | Liver Disorder |
Coffee Powder | Tamarind seed, date seed powder, Chicory powder | Diarrhoea, Stomach disorder, Giddiness and joint pain |
Wheat and other food grains (Bajra) | Ergot (a fungus containing poisonous substance) | Poisonous |
Sugar | Chalk powder | Stomach - Disorder |
Turmeric powder | Yellow aniline dyes, Non-permitted colourants like metanil yellow, Tapioca starch | Carcinogenic and stomach disorders |
Chilli powder | Brick powder, saw dust, artificial colours | Stomach problems, Cancer |
Food adulteration is a serious issue awareness is important, If there is any research and like to share more information feel free to reach ceo@namastekisan.com
Ref links :
https://medcraveonline.com/MOJFPT/detection-of-vegetable-oil-and-animal-depot-fat-adulteration-in-anhydrous-milk-fat-ghee-using-fatty-acid-composition.html
https://foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s40550-016-0045-3.pdf
https://www.civilserviceindia.com/current-affairs/articles/food-adulteration-in-india.html