FOOD ADULTERATION

Contaminated foods and drinks are common sources of infection. Among the more common
infections that one can get from contaminated foods and drinks are typhoid fever Escherichia coli
infections, shigellosis or bacillary dysentery, giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, other salmonelloses,
cholera, rotavirus infections, also a variety of worm infestations. Many of the infectious diseases
transmitted in food and water can also be acquired directly through the faecal-oral route.

Food adulteration

Food adulteration is the act of intentionally debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by
the admixture or substitution of inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredient.
Food is declared adulterated if:

• a substance is added which depreciates or injuriously affects it

• cheaper or inferior substances are substituted wholly or in part
• any valuable or necessary constituent has been wholly or in part abstracted
• it is an imitation
• it is coloured or otherwise treated, to improve its appearance or if it contains any added
substance injurious to health

Food-preservatives have a very extensive use, which often constitutes adulteration. Salt is the
classic preservative, but is seldom classified as an adulterant. Salicylic, benzoic, and boric acids,
and their sodium salts, formaldehyde, ammonium fluoride, sulphurous acid and its salts are among
the principal preservatives. Many of these appear to be innocuous, but there is danger that the
continued use of food preserved by these agents may be injurious. Some preservatives have been
conclusively shown to be injurious when used for long periods.

Coal-tar colours are employed a great deal, pickles and canned vegetables are sometimes coloured
green with copper salts; butter is made more yellow by anatta; turmeric is used in mustard and
some cereal preparations. Apples are the basis for many jellies, which are coloured so as to simulate
finer ones. In confectionery, dangerous colours, such as chrome yellow, prussian blue, copper and
arsenic compounds are employed. Yellow and orange-coloured sweets are to be suspected. Artificial
flavouring compounds are employed in the concoction of fruit syrups, especially those used for soda
water. Milk is adulterated with water, and indirectly by removing the cream. The addition of water
may introduce disease germs. Cream is adulterated with gelatin, and formaldehyde is employed as a
preservative for it. Butter is adulterated to an enormous extent with oleomargarine, a product of
beef fat. Brick dust in chilli powder, coloured chalk powder in turmeric, injectable dyes in
watermelon, peas, capsicum, brinjal, papaya seeds in black pepper etc.

To avoid illness, one is advised to select foods with care. All raw foods must be checked for
contamination particularly in areas where hygiene and sanitation are inadequate. One is advised to
avoid salads, uncooked vegetables, and unpasteurised milk and milk products such as cheese, and to
eat only food that has been cooked and is still hot. Undercooked and raw meat, fish, and shellfish
can carry various intestinal pathogens. Cooked food that has been allowed to stand for several
hours at ambient temperature can provide a fertile medium for bacterial growth and should be
thoroughly reheated before serving. Consumption of food and beverages obtained from street food
vendors has been associated with an increased risk of illness.

Water

Water that has been adequately chlorinated, by using the minimum recommended water treatment
standard provide protection against viral and bacterial waterborne diseases. However, chlorine
treatment alone, as used in the routine disinfection of water, might not kill some enteric viruses
and the parasitic organisms that cause giardiasis, amoebiasis, and cryptosporidiosis. In areas where
chlorinated tap water is not available or where hygiene and sanitation are poor, one is advised that
only the following might be safe to drink:

• Beverages, such as tea and coffee, made with boiled water

• Beer and wine
• The safety of canned or bottled carbonated beverages, including carbonated bottled water
and soft drinks is questionable nowadays.

Where water might be contaminated, one is advised that ice should also be considered
contaminated and should not be used in beverages. If ice has been in contact with containers used
for drinking, one should thoroughly clean the containers, preferably with soap and hot water, after
the ice has been discarded.

It is safer to drink a beverage directly from the can or bottle than from a questionable container.
However, water on the outside of beverage cans or bottles might also be contaminated. Therefore,
one should be advised to dry wet cans or bottles before they are opened and to wipe clean surfaces
with which the mouth will have direct contact. Where water might be contaminated, one is advised
to avoid brushing their teeth with tap water. The following methods may be used for treating water
to make it safe for drinking and other purposes.

• Boiling
• Chemical disinfection (for eg. chlorine tablets)
• Water filters

Proper selection, operation, care, and maintenance of water filters are essential to producing safe
water. If no source of safe drinking water is available or can be obtained, tap water that is
uncomfortably hot to touch might be safer than cold tap water; however, proper disinfection,
filtering, or boiling is still advised.

In food and beverages

Examples of adulteration include:

• Mogdad coffee, whose seeds have been used as an adulterant for coffee
• Roasted chicory roots, whose seeds have been used similarly, starting during the Napoleonic
era in France (and continuing until today as a moderately popular additive for cheaper
coffee)
• Roasted ground peas, beans, or wheat, which have been used to adulterate roasted chicory
• Diethylene glycol, used by some winemakers to fake sweet wines
• Oleomargarine or lard, added to butter
• Alum is added to disguise usage of lower-quality flour in expensive flours
• Apple jellies, as substitutes for more expensive fruit jellies, with added colorant and
sometimes even specks of wood that simulate strawberry seeds
• Artificial colorants, often toxic - e.g., copper, zinc, or indigo-based green dyes added to
absinthe
• Sudan I yellow color, added to chili powder, as well as Sudan Red for red color
• Water, for diluting milk and beer and hard drinks
• Low quality black tea, marketed as higher quality tea
• Starch, added to sausages
• Cutting agents, often used to adulterate (or "cut") illicit drugs - for example, shoe polish in
solid cannabis
• Urea, melamine and other non-protein nitrogen sources, added to protein products in order
to inflate crude protein content measurements[1]
• Powdered beechnut husk aromatized with cinnamic aldehyde, marketed as powdered
cinnamon.
• High fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, used to adulterate honey; C4 sugars serve as
markers, as detected by carbon isotopic signatures [2]
• Glutinous rice coloring made of hazardous industrial dyes, as well as tinopal to make rice
noodles whiter (to serve as bleach)[3]
• Noodles, meat, fish, tofu preserved with formaldehyde in tropical Asia, to prevent spoilage
from the sun[3]
• Ham has been used as a thickener for peanut butter.

Why Food Adulteration?

Let us be clear that food adulteration in India under the law includes both willful adulteration
of food and "substandard" foods which do not conform to the prescribed food standards but
are not done intentionally. Taking an overall view of all types of food adulteration, three major
underlying causes could be identified:

i. Inadequate availability of food to meet the demands of the consumer prompting the
unscrupulous food traders to use any means to stretch the supply to earn more money.
 ii. The more important reason is the basic dishonesty of the food traders and an urge to make
quick and easy money.In fact, this urge to make money in an unscrupulous manner is possibly the
basic reason for the majority of crimes committed in the modern day society, be it theft,
burglary, bank looting or murder. This dishonesty to earn easy and quick money is not only
restricted to the food traders who commit crime of food adulteration but can also apply with
equal force to the law enforcer who might make an alliance with the food trader with most
disasterous results.

iii. There are significant numbers of cases of food adulteration committed by small traders due
to their ignorance about the standards they are expected to maintain. It is true that all food
standards after they are developed are circulated by government notification for the
knowledge of all traders; but it is equally true that there is an abysmal gap between the traders
and the law enforcers, especially when they are small and medium traders e.g. the street corner
food sellers.

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

How to Test for Food Adulteration?

Food Article Adulterant Simple Method for Detecting the Adulterant

Water
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.
Milk

Take 5 ml of milk in a test tube and add 2 drops of bromothymol

Urea
blue soln. Development of blue colour after 10 minutes indicates
presence of urea.

Argemone seeds have rough surface and mustard seeds on

Mustard Seeds Argemone Seeds
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
Dissolve sugar in a glass of water, chalk will settle down at the
Sugar Chalk
bottom, similarly for salt
On ignition genuine silver foil burns away completely leaving
Silver Foil Aluminium Foil glistening white spherical ball of the same mass while aluminum foil
is reduced to ashes of black Grey colour.
A cotton wick dipped in pure honey burns when ignited with a
Honey Water match stick. If adulterated presence of water will not allow the
honey to burn, if it does will produce a cracking sound.
Gently sprinkle the coffee powder on surface of water in a glass.
The coffee floats over the water but chicory begins to sink down
Coffee Chicory within few seconds. The falling chicory powder particles leave
behind them a trail of colour, due to large amount of caramel they
contain
Coloured leaves

Rub leaves on white paper, artificial colour comes out on paper.

Tea leaves sprinkled on wet filter paper. Pink or red spots on

Tea Used tea
paper show colour

Move a magnet through the sample. Iron will stick to the magnet.

Iron fillings
Rodamine Culture Take 2gms sample in a test tube, add 5ml of acetone. Immediate
appearance of red colour indicates presence of Rodamine.
Red Chilli
Powder
Brick powder settles fast chilli powder settles slowly when put in
Brick Powder water.
Add a few drops of HCl to the extract of turmeric from water.
Turmeric
Metanil Yellow Instant appearance of violet, when the colour persists when
Powder
diluted with water indicates the presence of metanil yellow.
Dal arhar, Extract the colour with Luke warm water from the sample of
moong, washed Metanil Yellow pulses, add drops of HCl. A pink colour indicates presence of
channa metanil yellow.
Green Take a small part of the sample and place it over a moistened
vegetables like Malachite green white blotting paper, the impression of the colour on paper
chilli indicates the presence of malachite green
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
Pure Ghee or
Vanaspathi cane sugar. Shake well for one minute and let it stand for five
Butter
minutes. Appearance of crimson colour in lower layer shows the
presence of vanaspathi.
Float the sample in alcohol. The mature black pepper berries sink
Black Pepper Papaya Seeds
while papaya seeds and light black pepper float.
 Soap Stone or Shake a little portion of sample with water and allow to settle.
Hing
earthy matter Soap stone or earthy matter will settle down at the bottom.
Coloured dried Pure saffron will not break easily like artificial. Pure saffron when
Saffron tendrils of maize allowed to dissolved in water will continue to give its colour so long
cob as it lasts.
White powdered Stir a spoonful of sample salt in water. Chalk will make the solution
Common Salt
stone white and other insoluble impurities will setlle down.

Go Top

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 ?

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 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

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.

Prevention of food adulteration act 1955, rules-

Addition of preservatives- recommended and limited addition allowed.

Addition of poisonous metals.

Crop contaminants and naturally occurring toxic substances.

Antioxidants, emulsifying and stabilizing agents.

Flavoring agents and related substances –artificial and natural flavoring agents.

Food additives.

Insecticides and pesticides.

Solvent extracted fluor and edible fluor.

Sequestering and buffering agents, acids, bases and salts.

Irradiation of food.

Antibiotic and other pharmacologiacally active substances.