FOOD ADULTERATION

FOOD SAFETY OFFICERS SPECIAL

Adulteration : Under the PFA Act , the definition of food adulteration takes into account not only the intentional addition or sub stitution or abstra ction of sub stances which adversely affects the nature sub stance and quality of foods but also their incidental contamination during period of growth harvesting,
storage, processing ,transportation, and distribution let us take example of milk.

Under the PFA Act, a trader is guilty if he sells milk to which water has been added (intentional addition) or the cream of the milk has been replaced by cheap vegetable or animal fat (substitution) or simply the cream has been removed and the milk is sold as such, with a low fat content (abstraction). Unintentional contamination of the milk, due to carelessness on part of the trader is also considered as adulteration under the law. For instance, if the cans in which the trader is transporting or storing the milk, had been earlier treated with the chemicals like washing soda or boric acid or some detergent and not been washed thoroughly with water, residues of the chemicals may get mixed with the milk. Such milk would Ire considered adulterated. In addition, food is also considered to be adulterated, if it does not conform to the basic quality standards. For instance, the maximum amount of moisture allowed in a milk powder sample is 4%. If a sample is found to have greater moisture levels, it is considered to be adulterated.

The malpractice of food adulteration is still widely prevalent in our country. There are very few studies on the extent and nature of food adulteration in the country. Whatever studies are available, are restricted to a select few cities and hence are not adequate to give a true picture for the country as a whole. The only data that are available are the reports from the food testing laboratories of the Central and State Government. According to these official reports, the extent of food adulteration in India bas been gradually diminishing from 3 1% in 1960s to less than 10% in the 1990s.

Food is a basic need for all. A food should not only be available in sufficient quantity, you would agree, it should also be nutritious, safe and wholesome. Pure food is essential for the maintenance of health. Food adulteration, there fore, not just lowers the quality of the food but also poses a serious health hazard. Consumption of poor , quality or unwholesome food by the citizens of a nation lead to ill-health and thus poor work efficiency. Providing good quality food is thus of considerable importance for public health and the national economy. Several laws have been enacted and implemented by the Central and State Governments to help maintain food quality at various stages fiom production through storage, processing, internal and external trade and consumption. The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, 1954 and the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955 are the main statutes which protect the consumer and aim to provide him safe food: We will be learning more ‘about these laws and regulations later in Unit 14 of this Course. Now, let us dwell . on why is the food adulterated, i.e. the reasons for adulteration.
Particularly in the light of the ill-consequences of food adulteration, why do individuals practice food adulteration.

Reasons for adulteration

The practice of adulterating food is as old as the art of buying and selling food for cash or commo-dities. The question that might arise in your mind is, why do people practise adulteration of food when they know that it adversely affects the health of fellow human beings? The answer is straight forward – ‘the possibility of making greater profits’, which has always been the lure for people indulging in the adulteration – of food. Increa- sing the bulk or quantity of a food item by adding cheaper substi- tutes is the most common way of increasing profit margins. Adding water to milk or stones to food grains is perhaps the oldest form of adulteration. Similarly, to save money, a sweetmeat maker may place aluminium foil instead of silver foil on the sweets he makes. Apart from this, the other reasons include masking food spoilage and ignorance .of the people handling food. Let us study about these.
Traders of perishable food commo dities sometimes try to mask food spoilage by using various adulter ants. For instance, the insect infested dry ginger may be coated with ultramarine blue to cover the holes. Poor quality fruits, vege tables and pulses are sometimes artificially coloured to give them the fresh look. Adulterants like artificial colours are also added to foods to improve their consumer appeal. Thus several prepared food items being sold in restau rants and eateries such as rice and meat preparations, sweets etc. have added colour because the consumer prefers it.

 

FOODS COMMONLY ADULTERATED

Which foods are commonly implicated in the malpractice of adulteration? What leads to adulteration of a particular food? Which adulterant is used and why? We will learn about these aspects in this section.
If we analyze the data on adulteration collected during surveys across the country, we will notice that almost all kinds of foodstuffs have been found to be adulterated., No food is spared. However, the nature of food adulteration may vary from State to State or region to region. In one region, one type of food commodity may be more prone to adulteration, simply because sales of the commodity are high in that region. A type of adulterant may be more common in a particular area because it is cheap and readily available. Taking the example of edible oil, if for instance, groundnut oil is the most widely consumed oil in a State and then it would be obvious that the adulteration of this oil would be most common. And if cottonseed oil is the cheapest and most readily available oil in that area, then it would be used to adulterate the more expensive groundnut oil. Listed herewith are some of the foods that have been commonly found to be adulterated. You will find that these are the ones which we consume on a daily basis. These foods include:

1) Food grains like wheat, rice, pulses and their products like wheat flour, semolina (suji), gram flour (besan) etc.
2) Edible oils and fats like groundnut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, mustard oil, vanaspati etc.
3) spices, both whole and ground, like red chilli powder, turmeric and coriander powder, asafoetida (hing), saffron etc.
4) Milk and milk products like milk powder, butter, ghee, kova, sweets
5) Coffee, tea .
6) Sweetening agents like sugar, honey
7) Non alcoholic beverages like juices, aerated drinks,
8) food items like laddo, rice like biryani, tandoori meat dishes.

Milk: In milk, the most widely used adulterant is water. Not only do the milk vendors add water to the milk sold loose but there also exists a racket of removing a portion of the milk from plastic pouches of well known companies and diluting the remaining milk with water. Such addition of water is very easily detected by measuring the specific gravity or relative density of the milk. Sometimes, to avoid detection, the vendors increase the specific gravity of diluted milk by adding sugar; starch or urea. Addition of preservatives like formalin, boric acid, hydrogen peroxide and neutralizers like sodium bicarbonate and caustic soda is also prevalent to increase the shelf life of the milk. This is especially done in summer months when milk spoils easily and by vendors who have to transport the milk over long distances. contaminants usually found in milk are the pesticide residues (from pesticides sprayed in cattle sheds), antibiotic residues (from medications given to the cattle) and aflatoxin (from aflatoxin contaminated feed given to the cattle).

Edible fats and oils: The most common adulterant in edible oils is a cheaper oil, which may or may not be edible. The cheaper oils generally used to adulterate expensive cooking oils are castor oil, mineral oil, argernone oil, palmolein, cottonseed oil and rapeseed oil. Ghee is usually found to be adulterated with vanaspati or hydrogenated oils. Lard, a cheaply available animal body fat, may also be added. Contaminants which have been detected in oils are the pesticide residues (from the pesticides which had been sprayed on the oil seed crops before harvesting) and aflatoxin especially in unrefined groundnut oil (from use of poor quality, – fungus infested groundnuts). The process of refining the oil destroys the aflatoxin and hence it is safer to consume refined oils.

Spices: Cheaper agricultural produce like wheat starch, jowar, rice, corn and arrowroot starch are used in a number of expensive foods like ground spices (red chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder, garam masaIa etc.). The starch which is white in colour is usually dyed to the colour of the spice to which it is being added. Sometimes essential oils derived from expensive spices like cloves are extracted and the exhausted spice is sold as such. Cinnamon bark may be , mixed with the bark of another similar looking tree, asafoetida may be mixed with a foreign resin, seeds of black pepper may be mixed with papaya seeds and mustard seeds may be mixed with argemone seeds which look similar.
Types of adulterants detected in different food items

Milk      :      Antibiotic residues, formalin, boric acid, pesticide residues, neutralize like sodium bicarbonate, urea, water, sugar, starch, foreign fat, ammonium sulphate, cellulose.

Milk powder : Pesticide residues, sugar, starch, fat deficiency, excessive moisture.

Ghee and vanaspati Extraneous colours, animal body fat, hydrogenated vegetableoils, excessive moisture

Edible oils : Castor oil, mineral oil, argemone oil, triorthocresyl phosphate, oil – soluble colours, aflatoxin, pesticide residues, cheaper . vegetable oils

Spices : Non-permitted colours, mineral oil coating, husk, starch, foreign seedsiresins, extraneous matter, exhausted spices

Non alcoholic beverages Saccharin, dulcin, brominated vegetable oils, non- permitted colours, excess permitted colour

Coffee Date or tamarind seeds, artificial colour.

Tea Colour, iron filings, foreign leaves, exhausted leaves

Cereals and their
products like
maida, suji, flou    Fungal infestation, pesticide residues, sand, dirt, foreign starch, powdered chalk, iron filings, aflatoxins, insect damage.