FOOD ADULTERATIONIn our daily life, we come in contact with dozen of unhygienic and contaminated food products which put really bad effect on our health. Most of these food products just mix up into our daily food and contaminate our health. Even the common food, which we eat, is adulterated. Now a question arises that what is adulteration? An adulterant is a chemical substance which should not be contained within our food, beverages, and fuels. Adulterants may be intentionally added to more expensive substances to increase visible quantities and reduce manufacturing costs, or for some other deceptive or malicious purpose. Adulterants may also be introduced into food products by accidentally or unknowingly. The substance, which lowers or degrades the quality of food material, is called an adulterant.

Adulteration brings a lot of easy money for the traders, but it may spoil many lives. In these days we often hear news related to food adulteration which lead to slow poisoning and various kinds of diseases, and some time it can even result in death. Problem of Adulteration makes the food items used in our daily life unsafe and unhygienic for use. The traders use it for their economic benefit without thinking about its effect on the health of common population of our country, which consumes it.

Common Type Food Adulterations in India

Milk

One of the best things in the world God has given to us is milk and products made from milk like butter, curd, buttermilk, ghee, mava etc. Sources of milk are cow or buffalo; food given to these animals has grown with the help of chemicals (urea). Milk obtained from these animals that consume grass grown with urea, contains these chemicals in their milk. Human consume this milk containing chemicals which causes various diseases. Today, some people for the sake of greed use urea, milk powder to

manufacture artificial milk. Milk is mixed with toxic additives like Urea to increase the consistency and it is also said that such adulterated milk - remains intact even for 2 or more days while ordinary milk goes sour in a day or more!!

This milk is 100 percent hazardous to human life. The huge profit margins by sale of adulterated milk has made this happen and unfortunately we have little facilities to detect such adulteration and prevent the same Life of human is not safe in such situation. Sweets made from this milk product are more dangerous because chemicals and preservatives are mixed in it. There is not a single city in India which is not affected by milk adulteration. .

The consumption of packaged milk spiked with chemicals can cause high blood pressure, cardiac problems, premature births, nephritis and kidney related problems

Moral values has lost these days people for the sake of money people are ready to do any crime against humanity and not realizing that this act of theirs will effect their own family but the greed for money has dominated their thinking.

We, the people have to come forward and fight against adulterations of food products by spreading awareness among common peoples about ill effects of food adulterations.

The government, however, has failed to check the practice thus giving an open field to packaged milk producers to promote their business in urban areas.

Starch in the given sample of milk:- Presence of starch in milk can be detected by exploiting the formation of blue colour complex with Iodine 5ml. of milk was taken in a test tube and was boiled and after cooling a few drops of iodine solution or tincture of iodine were added and the contents were shaken , appearance of blue colour indicated the presence of starch in the milk.

GHEE

Ghee is adulterated with substances like vanaspati, mashed potato, sweet potato, and other starches. Presence of starch in ghee can be identified by iodine test. Boil 5ml of sample. Cool it and add a drop of iodine to it. If blue color appears it indicates the presence of starch. Color disappears on boiling and reappears on cooling .For the detection of vanaspati take equal quantities of melted ghee and Conc.H2S0 4.To this add a pinch of cane sugar. Shake well for 1 min and test it after 5min. Appearance of crimson color in lower layer shows the presence of vanaspati.

In Ghee: – It is adulterated with vanaspati and animal fats such as pig’s fat. In order to improve the flavor of adulterated ghee tributyrin is added.

Vanaspti in Ghee:- Took one tea spoon full of liquid ghee. Added equal quantity of conc. HCl shook this mixture in a test tube. Now add a pinch of common sugar. Shook it well for about one minute and then allowed it to stand for 5 minute and observed the result.

In our country we have every type of rules and regulation but when we need to implementthese rules and law then we found our self helpless. For preventing

adulteration problem,our government has made some certain commissions and

laws. But these laws and commissions still waiting to implement properly and those people who do these kind of work they are still wake in large because they know, no body can stop them, only they need to give little fine or some time only bribe. Now Indian government needs to take hard step against those people who

are responsible for these kinds of work and Adulteration should be checked properly in common food items if we want to save life of people from its bad

effects.

OIL

One type of cheaper oil is adulterated with the original oil. When the market price of lard oil is high and that of cottonseed oil is low, the former is often adulterated with the latter. It is also adulterated with petroleum oils, especially prepared for that purpose, and with addition of refined and deodorized rosin oil, to equalize the specific gravity of the mixture to that of pure lard oil. No. 1 lard oil is adulterated with white neutral oil and No. 2 lard oil is adulterated with yellow neutral oil. Olive oil is also much adulterated with cottonseed oil, sunflower oil and others, when their market prices, being lower than that of olive oil. Sperm oil is much adulterated with cheaper fish oils, well refined, deodorized and bleached. Linseed oil is adulterated with corn oil, cottonseed oil, rapeseed oil, hempseed oil and rosin oil. Castor oil is adulterated with blown oils, such as linseed, rape or cottonseed and rosin oils. If only ten per cent of them be present, they cause turbidity with absolute alcohol, with which castor oil is miscible in every proportion.

BUTTER

The adulteration of butter consists chiefly in a substitution of other substances, either in whole or in part, for the butter fat, or of an inferior and "doctored" article. The substitutions used as adulterants are chiefly either renovated butter, or oleomargarine. Renovated butter is made by taking different lots of stale or rancid butter, melting it, allowing the curd to settle, and re-churning the fat with a small amount of milk. The product is certainly better than the rancid butter, but it cannot compare in flavor and in wholesomeness with fresh butter, and certainly should not be sold as such. Oleomargarine, or buttering, is made by clarifying the fat of beef and churning it in milk. It differs from butter in its composition in that it contains practically no curd, and is lacking in the volatile fatty acids that are present in the butter and characteristic of it. It is cheaper than butter and sold to the customers in the name of original butter. It is materially less digestible than butter itself; it does not grow rancid with the ease that butter does.

Health hazards of adulteration:

Adulteration of food causes several heath problems in humans. Some of the health hazards include stomach ache, body ache, anemia, abortion, paralysis, and increase in the incidence of tumors, pathological lesions in vital organs, abnormalities of skin and eyes. Hence food adulteration should be given great importance due to its effect in the health significance of the public.

HOW TO PREVENT FOOD ADULTERATION:

In recent times, adulteration in food items have become very common phenomenon and every day, we hear numbers of such news of food adulteration where police or health authorities unearth such rackets of food adulteration. All these news only confirms that we are eating adulterated food and we cannot trust anymore food which we are going to eat. Many of such culprit use toxic and poisonous chemical materials for food adulteration which can cause harmful diseases like cancer. Farmers are injecting vegetables with chemicals so that they can grow faster while milkmen are injecting cows with similar chemicals to increase quantity of milk. Many gangs are making adulterated food items from toxic materials and then levelling them as branded products. Therefore, it becomes hard to clearly tell that we are eating a healthy and hygienic food or not. It becomes very important for government to stop food adulterations and provide healthy and good food to people; though, so far government have failed to take any positive measures in this regard. Below, I am suggesting few ways which can help in putting control on wide spread menace of food adulteration.

1) First and most important point is to increase awareness among masses about food adulteration and educating people about how to check food adulteration. 2) Making stringent laws against food adulteration. 3) Increasing levels of food safety standards and creating clear guidelines and laws for food manufacturers, 4) Punishing strongly all culprits involved in food adulteration. 5) Development of new technologies which can check food adulteration in food items.6) Creating a strong and adulteration free distribution system of good food items.