Preventing Food Adulteration

PREVENTING FOOD ADULTERATION

Food is essential for life. It should be pure, nutritious  and free from any type of adulteration for proper maintenance of human health.

Despite of improvement in production, processing and packaging, more poisons seem to be entering our food chain. For example Indian spices or 'masalas' add taste and flavour to food and also help in digestion. Some spices like turmeric have an antiseptic effect on the body. But what is most important is the quality of these ingredients. Every consumer wants to get maximum quantity of a commodity for as low a price as possible. This attitude of the consumer being coupled with the intention of the traders to increase the margin of profit, where the quality of the commodity gets reduced through addition of a baser substance and / or removal of vital elements also commonly known as food adulteration.
 

	What is Food Adulteration ?
	How To Test For food Adulteration
	What You Can Do ?

What Is Food Adulteration ?

Under the Prevention of Food Adulterant Act, an Adulterant is any material which be employed for the purposes of adulteration.

Any article of food is adulterated if :

1. If any inferior or cheaper substance has been substituted wholly or in part,
2. If any constituent of the article ahs been wholly or in part abstracted
3. If the article has been prepared, packed or kept under insanitary conditions
4. If the article consists in part filthy, rotten, decomposed or diseased animal or vegetable or is infested with insects
5. If the article is obtained from diseased animal
6. If the article contains any poisonous ingredient
7. If the article has unprescribed colouring substance or the colouring substance is in excess of the prescribed limits.
8. If the article contains any prohibited or excessive preservatives.
9. If the quality nor purity of the article falls below prescribed standard

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How to Test for Food Adulteration?

Food Article	Adulterant	Simple Method for Detecting the Adulterant
Milk	Water Urea	Put a drop of milk on polished vertical surface. The drop of pure milk either stops or flows slowly leaving a white trail behind it. Whereas milk adulterated with water will flow immediately without leaving a mark.Take 5 ml of milk in a test tube and add 2 drops of bromothymol blue soln. Development of blue colour after 10 minutes indicates presence of urea.
Mustard Seeds	Argemone Seeds	Argemone seeds have rough surface and mustard seeds on pressing is yellow inside while argemone seed is white.
Ice Cream	Washing Powder	Put some lemon juice, bubbles are observed on the presence of washing powder
Sugar	Chalk	Dissolve sugar in a glass of water, chalk will settle down at the bottom, similarly for salt
Silver Foil	Aluminium Foil	On ignition genuine silver foil burns away completely leaving glistening white spherical ball of the same mass while aluminum foil is reduced to ashes of black Grey colour.
Honey	Water	A cotton wick dipped in pure honey burns when ignited with a match stick. If adulterated presence of water will not allow the honey to burn, if it does will produce a cracking sound.
Coffee	Chicory	Gently sprinkle the coffee powder on surface of water in a glass.  The coffee floats over the water but chicory begins to sink down within few seconds.  The falling chicory powder particles leave behind them a trail of colour, due to large amount of caramel they contain
Tea	Coloured leaves  Used tea Iron fillings	Rub leaves on white paper, artificial colour comes out on paper. Tea leaves sprinkled on wet filter paper. Pink or red spots on paper show colour Move a magnet through the sample. Iron will stick to the magnet.
Red Chilli Powder	Rodamine Culture  Brick Powder	Take 2gms sample in a test tube, add 5ml of acetone. Immediate appearance of red colour indicates presence of Rodamine.  Brick powder settles fast chilli powder settles slowly when put in water.
Turmeric Powder	Metanil Yellow	Add a few drops of HCl to the extract of turmeric from water. Instant appearance of violet, when the colour persists when diluted with water indicates the presence of metanil yellow.
Dal arhar, moong, washed channa	Metanil Yellow	Extract the colour with Luke warm water from the sample of pulses, add drops of HCl.  A pink colour indicates presence of metanil yellow.
Green vegetables like chilli	Malachite green	Take a small part of the sample and place it over a moistened white blotting paper, the impression of the colour on paper indicates the presence of malachite green
Pure Ghee or Butter	Vanaspathi	Take one teaspoonful of melted ghee or butter with equal quantity of Conc. Hydrochloric acid in a test tube and add to it a pinch of cane sugar. Shake well for one minute and let it stand for five minutes. Appearance of crimson colour in lower layer shows the presence of vanaspathi.
Black Pepper	Papaya Seeds	Float the sample in alcohol. The mature black pepper berries sink while papaya seeds and light black pepper float.
Hing	Soap Stone or earthy matter	Shake a little portion of sample with water and allow to settle. Soap stone or earthy matter will settle down at the bottom.
Saffron	Coloured dried tendrils of maize cob	Pure saffron will not break easily like artificial. Pure saffron when allowed to dissolved in water will continue to give its colour so long as it lasts.
Common Salt	White powdered stone	Stir a spoonful of sample salt in water. Chalk will make the solution white and other insoluble impurities will setlle down.

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For HCL you can use Tezab /Acid at your home, used for cleaning toilets. For acetone , you may use look  nail polish remover.

For HCL you can use Tezab /Acid at your home, used for cleaning toilets. Instead of acetone , you may use look  nail polish remover.

What You Can Do ?   

     If you have purchased any branded item and doubt its quality, you can at least approach the company concerned. Always remember to preserve your grocery bills so that the company can take necessary steps regarding the complaint

Food Adulteration occur in rural as well as urban areas. So the first option is to buy branded  and ISI-marked products. Even if these branded items cost a little extra, it is worth paying the extra amount to safe guard your health. 

If any person manufactures for sale, stores, sell imports or distributes any article of food which is adulterated or misbranded, he is liable under the PFA Act to be punished with imprisonment and fined.  If you find that any food is adulterated, then do not keep silent. Complain to Prevention of Food Adulteration Department in your city / town / district and report to the newspapers and make more and more people aware to take joint action.