Food Adultration

Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to meet the legal standards. One form of adulteration is an addition of another
substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which may result in the loss of actual
quality of food item. These substances may be either available food items or non-food items. Among meat and meat products some of the items
used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed.

Food adulteration can lead to slow poisoning and various kinds of diseases, which can even result in death. Adulteration
makes the food items used in our daily life unsafe and unhygienic for use. An easy example of food adulteration is
vanaspati ghee in desi ghee. The traders use it for their economic benefit without thinking about its effect on the common
population of our country, which consumes it.

Types of Food Adulteration

The most common type of food adulterations is of following types:

1. Milk :- It is adulterated by the addition of water, starch, skim milk powder and removal of cream.

2 . Ice Cream:- Most common adulterants in ice cream are pepperonil, ethylacetate,butraldehyde, emil acetate, nitrate,
washing powder etc

3. Butter And Cream:- Butter can be diluted with water or partially replaced with cheaper plant oils such as palm oil,
sunflower oil and soybean oil.

4. 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.

5. Cereals :- Rice and wheat are mixed with stones sand grit and mud to increase the bulk.
6. Flour :- Wheat flour is mixed with soapstone and Bengal gram flour is adulterated with Kesari dal or lathyrus flour.

7. Pulses :- They are adulterated with Kesari Dal stones are added to pulses such as mott urad, and masoor. Toxic chemical such
as metanil yellow are added to old stocks of pulses to improve their colour appearance.

8. Edible Oil :- They are mixed with cheaper oil, toxic oil (e.g. argemone oil) and mineral oil.

9. Honey :- It is adulterated with sugar and jaggery.

10. Turmeric:- It is mix with yellow soil.

CAUSES OF FOOD ADULTERATION:

 Profit motive of traders: Done as a part of the business strategy
 Increased Urbanization: To make maximum profit from food items by fewer investments.
 Illiteracy of general public: Lack of consciousness of proper food consumption.
 Lack of effective food laws
 Lack of government in initiative

METHODS OF FOOD ADULTERATION:

1. Mixing: Mixing of clay, stones, pebbles, sand, marble chips, etc.
2. Substitution: Cheaper and inferior substances being replaced wholly or partially with good ones.
3. Concealing quality: Trying to hide the food standard. E.G. adding captions of qualitative food to low quality for selling.
4. Decomposed food: Mainly in fruits and vegetables. The decomposed ones are mixed with good ones
5. Misbranding/ False labels: Includes duplicate food stuffs, changing of manufacture and expiry dates.
6. Addition of toxicants: adding non-edible substances like argemone in mustard oil, low quality preservatives, colouring agents, etc.

Experiment
To Detect The Presence Of Adulterants In The Milk, Pulses, Butter And Oil.

Material Required
T e s t - t u b e , Beaker, Slides, A c e t i c A n h yd r i d e , C o n c . H 2 S O 4 , Acetic acid, Conc. HNO 3, Conc. HCl., Conc. Nitric Acid, Milk,
Ghee, Oil, Turmeric.

Procedure
1. For Milk

1.Water In Milk
The presence of water can be by putting a drop of milk on a polished slanting surface. The drop of pure milk either or flows lowly leaving a
white trail behind it, whereas milk adulterated water will flow immediately without leaving a mark.

2.Starch In Milk
Milk contains relatively large amount of fat. Addition of carbohydrate to milk increases its solid content. There by reducing the amount of
fat present in the milk. Starch is one such component that is added to adulterate milk.
The test to detect starch in milk uses iodine solution, addition of which turns the milk solution to blue black color due to the
formation of starch –Iodo complex, in the presence of starch.

3.Soap In Milk
Soap is added to milk to increase the foaming of milk and thus to have thick milk. Addition of such chemicals will cause health problem
especially related to stomach and kidneys.
Soap can be detected by adding phenolphthalein indicator to the adulterated milk. A pink color will be observed if soap is present as the
alkali will be neutralized by the acidity of the milk when phenolphthalein indicator is added.

2. For Ghee
Take about one tea spoon full of melted sample of Ghee with equal quantity of concentrated Hydrochloric acid in a
stoppered test tube and add to it a pinch of sugar. Shake it well for about one minute and then allowed it to stand for 5
minute.
Appearance of crimson colour in lower layer of solution will be of Vanaspati or Margarine.

if the test is positive i.e. red colour develops only by adding strong Hydrochloric acid (without adding crystals of sugar) then
the sample is adulterated with coal tar dye.
If the crimson or red colour develops after adding and shaking with sugar, then alone Vanaspati or Margarine is present.
 Reaction :-
The reaction to make vanaspati ghee or vegetable oil is addition reaction.
CH2=CH2+H2 gives CH3—CH3 which is saturated.
This reaction takes place in presence of some catalysts like nickel or palladium metals.

Deshi ghee, which is a milk product is much costlier than vanaspati ghee.So, deshi ghee is often
adulterated with vanaspati ghee. Vanaspati ghee contains seasame oil,which is not present in deshi
ghee.Seasame oil reacts with the mixture of conc.HCL and furfural solution to produce rose red
colour.This test s known as Baudoiun test.
Reagent: Concentrated HCL and 2% solution of furfural in alcohol.
Procedure: 5mL of melted ghee sample is taken in a test tube.5mL of conc. HCL is added to
it.Then 2-3 drops of 2% solution of furfural is added in alcohol.The mixture is shaked the mixture
and is allowed to stand for about 10 minutes.
Detection: Appearance of rose red colour indicates the presence of vanaspati ghee in the ghee
sample.

3. For Oil

#Edible Oil
Take 5 ml of sample in a test tube and add 5 ml of concentrated hydrochloric acid.
Shake gently, let it stand for 5 minutes. Pink colour will separate in the upper layer of the solution.

#Argemone oil in mustard oil

Heat the mixture of oils with a little amount of nitric acid for two to
three minutes. A red colour will appear if argemone is presen

4.For Pulses
1.Metanil yellow in pulses
Shake 5 gms: of the suspected pulses with 5 ml of water. Add a few drops of
hydrochloric acid. A pink colour shows the presence of metanil yellow.
2. Kesari Dal in Channa or Other Dals
Add 5 ml of normal hydrochloric acid to a small quantity of dal in a glass.
Keep the glass in simmering water for 15 minutes. Development of pink
colour indicates the presence of Kesari dal. By visual detection-shape of dal.
The kesari dal is wedge shaped.

CONCLUSION-
I have studied different chemical reactions involving in the process of detection of
different adulterants in different food items. These experiments were performed for the purpose
of detecting various adulterants present is common food. The results obtained during these
experiments have been shown in this project. The experiments have been performed by common
laboratory methods.

Source
1. https://www.publichealthnotes.com
2. http://www.allprojectreports.com
3. https://www.slideshare.ne
4. https://www.indiatoday.in
5. http://vikaspedia.in
6.