FOOD ADULTERATION

We have all become a little skeptical of the purity and quality standards of the food we consume these days. Food colours, chemicals and additives often creep up not just in our local produce, but even in packaged products. Mixing milk with water to add volume, starch in paneer to make it thicker and fluffier, hydrogenated oils and vanaspati in ghee, and anatta in butter to give it that dark, rich yellow colour, stories like these often shake us up and make us question what we eat. 

Foodadulteration can be intentional when done to add volume, texture, taste or stability to the items. Or it can be due to carelessness or poor maintenance of the facility/logistics on part of the food manufacturer/ distributor. The bottom line is that it can cause serious long term damage to your health.

Adulterants can be of two types:

1) Intentional Adulterants: Some manufacturers mix adulterants like brick powder, chalk powder, dried seeds, stones, marble, addition of harmful colors to food items like spices, pulses (metanil yellow in Turmeric or Carmoisine in Chili powder) with intention to make more profit.

2)  Incidental Adulterants is the contamination due to carelessness and lack of proper hygiene during overall processing of food. It includes contamination due to defective packaging and storage and may result in bacterial or fungal attack. Although, it’s not possible to check for adulteration only on visual examination as adulterants are present in ppm or ppb levels.

The Bureau of Indian standards inspects the various food products manufactured. If the products have the standard quality needed, the certificate in issued. The various certificates of reliability are the F.P.O (Food Products Order) mark, the I.S.I. (Indian Standard Institution) mark and the AGMARK (Agriculture Marketing).

In order to test the purity of the various food items, most of the big cities have food testing laboratories. To keep a check, the officials of the health department take samples of common food products from different shops and send them to the food laboratories for analysis. In case an adulterated food in detected, the manufacturer and the shop-keeper who is selling such a product, is prosecuted and punished. according to the law.

There is hardly any item in the Indian market, which is not adulterated. Research has shown that even fruits, vegetables and cereals, sold in the market, are said to contain high levels of toxic metals like lead, nickel, cadmium, and chromium. Adulteration spares nothing when a spirit of becoming quickly rich, over-rules the moral ground. Even the simple water is not spared. Under the well known brand name-mineral water is reused filling with tube well water and is sold to weary thirsty train passengers.