Food Adulteration

INTRODUCTION:
Food adulteration refers to the act of intentionally debasing the quality of food by either adding or
replacing the food substances with undeclared alternative components, or by the removal of some
valuable components. This is usually done to lower the cost or increase the bulk of a given food
product. This has been a major concern among consumers as it is often undesirable from an
economic, health, religious, or legal standpoint.

Food Adulteration:
They classified into two types:
(I) Incidental adulteration.
(II) Intentional adulteration
Incidental adulteration :
It occurs when foreign substances are added to a food as a result of ignorance,
negligence, or improper facilities.
Intentional adulteration:
It involves the deliberate addition of inferior materials to a food to heighten appearance qualities
and to gain greater profits. These inferior substances include ground material (e.g., sawdust),
leaves, powdered products (e.g., starches).

An example in this regard is the adulteration of milk with synthetic milk that contains harmful
substances such as urea, caustic soda, or vegetable oil.
Although 180–400 mg/L urea is present naturally in milk (johnker et al., 1998), the cutoff limit is
a concentration of 700 mg/L (FSSAI, 2012).
Adulterants are added in milk to increase these parameters, thereby increasing the milk quality in
dishonest way.

For example, cane sugar, starch, sulfate salts, urea and common salts are added to increase solid-
not-fat (SNF).
Urea, being a natural constituent of raw milk, has a maximum limit imposed by FSSAI (Food
Safety and Standards Authority of India)
Jha (2007) explained adulterations in juices, milk, and dairy products and developed a technique
(Jha et al., 2015) for the detection and quantification of urea in milk using ATR-FTIR. A clear
difference in absorption values of milk adulterated with urea compared with those of pure milk
was observed in the spectral region of 1670–1564 cm−1
Adulterants are added in milk to increase these parameters, thereby increasing the milk quality in
dishonest way.

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Detergents are added to emulsify and dissolve the oil in water giving a frothy solution, which is
the desired characteristics of milk (Singuluri & Sukumaran, 2014).

The ingestion of melamine at levels above Detergents are added to emulsify and dissolve the oil
in water giving a frothy solution, which is the desired characteristics of milk.

Content falsely (Liu et al. 2012). Ammonium sulphate is added to increase the lactometer
reading by maintaining the density of diluted milk. Formalin, Salicylic acid, Benzoic acid and
Hydrogen peroxide act as preservatives and increase the shelf life of the milk.
Milk has been an indispensable part of our food culture as it contains vital micronutrients and
macronutrients. But, are we sure that the milk we all consume is pure and free from hazardous
chemicals? Apparently, we notice a plethora of news related to milk adulteration every now and
then from all over the country. This certainly raises a lurking doubt and apprehensions around
the purity of milk.
The milk business is growing in India, with around 2 lakh villages in the dairy industry. India is
the largest exporter of milk but dismayingly, there is a huge gap between the production and
consumption of milk. This massive gap is being manipulated and misused with the business of
milk adulteration.
Milk adulteration and risks of its consumption:
Primarily, preservatives are added to the milk as adulterants to increase the
shelf life of milk. Moreover, to increase the volume and quantity of milk water
is added which further leads to contamination and proves to be a double
whammy.

Here are few typical adulterants in milk:

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 • In order to increase the carbohydrate content and density of the milk,
table sugar is added as an adulterant which also increases the density of
milk. Consequently, water is added to the milk that will not be detected
with a lactometer test.
• Starch is adulterated in milk to increase the solid content.
• Benzoic acid and Salicylic acid are added to milk to increase the shelf
life of milk.
• To make the milk thick soap is added to milk which leads to severe
health issues related to stomach and kidneys.
• Formalin is added to milk to preserve it for a long period of time. It is
highly toxic and leaves a damaging effect on the liver and kidney.
• Ammonium Sulphate is used as an adulterant in milk as it has the
tendency to increase the lactometer reading by maintaining the density
of milk.

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Methods for detection of milk adulteration:
• The removal of fat from milk by skimming will indicate a lower
percentage of fat, higher density reading, higher ratio of SNF.
• The added water in milk will indicate lower percentage of fat, lower
percentage of SNF, lower density reading.
• A starch iodine test can detect the starch present in milk. Take a test
tube of 3ml sample of milk. Boiled and cooled at room temperature then
add a drop of 1 percent iodine solution. Notably, the appearance of blue
colour indicates the presence of starch which disappears on boiling and
reappears on cooling.
• Sodium chloride (common salt) is added to make up the density
(lactometer reading) of watered milk. Take 2 ml of milk and add 0.1 ml
of 5 percent potassium chromate and 2 ml of 0.1 N silver nitrate.
Appearance of Yellow precipitate indicates the presence of sodium
chloride.
• In order to detect detergent in milk, shake 5-10 ml of sample with an
equal amount of water. Lather indicates the presence of detergent iIn
order to test for presence of glucose /invert sugar take a diacetric strip
and dip into the milk for 30 sec to 1 min. If the strip changes the colour
then it confirms the presence of glucose in milk.

•In various cases, to meet the demand for cow milk artificial colours,
coal tar dyes, annato are added to adulterate buffalo milk with water.

• The laboratory method is the most appropriate way to detect

adulteration in milk as tests are performed in a monitored environment
with all the necessary apparatus and safety measures.

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