FOOD ADULTERATION

Prodyut Kumar Paul

Professor, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya
Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya
FOOD ADULTERATION

 Adulteration of food commonly defined as “the addition or subtraction of any substance

to or from food, so that the natural composition and quality of food substance is affected”.

 Food adulteration includes mixing, substitution, concealing the quality, putting up

decomposed food for sale, misbranding or giving false labels and addition of toxicants.
 Economic adulteration implies that food is adulterated by dilution, removal or using
substitutes.
 The substance that is used to lower the quality is known as adulterant.

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History

Published his book “A

First Investigated Treatise on Adulterations of
In 1820 Food and Culinary Poisons”
in 1820.

Identified metallic
German chemist colour subjects in
Frederick Accum. food and drinks

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History

 Arthur Hill Hassall (1817–94), a British physician, applied

microscopy to detect the presence of chicory in coffee.
 Dr. Arthur Hassall of the Royal Free Hospital and Henry
Lethanby, published in the Lancet between 1851 and 1854
and set up his first parliamentary enquiry on food
adulteration in 1855-56.
 The first Food Adulteration Act was passed in 1860 and
revised in 1872.

UTTAR BANGA KRISHI Viswavidyalaya

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Story of a Adulteration: The Dark World of ‘Dirty’ Chocolate during 17th century and it
is identified by British Health Commission.

• Simply fraudulent, but not necessarily injurious to health.

• Use of drugs or chemicals for the purpose of changing the
appearance
• The admixture of potash, ammonia, and acids with cocoa to
give the apparent smoothness and strength.

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Why food and drinks are adulterated ?

More
demand

Low cost
Profit
of
production Margin

Adulterated
Food
Afford by
Disease
common
outbreaks
man

Lack of
manpower

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Types of adulteration

 Adulteration of foods is done by many means but broadly there are three types of
adulterations.
 Intentional adulteration: It is inclusion of inferior substances having properties
similar to the foods which could be physical or biological in nature.
 Incidental adulteration: Adulteration is due to lack of proper hygienic conditions of
food products and drinks throughout production site to consumption table .
 Metallic Adulteration: When the metallic substances are added intentionally or
accidentally.

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Examples of adulterants

Intentional adulterants Metallic contamination Incidental adulterants

It includes sand, marble It includes arsenic from It includes pests, pesticides

chips, stone, mud, chalk
powder, water, mineral oil
and coal tar dyes. It causes
harmful effects on the
body.
pesticides, leads from
water, and mercury from
effluents of chemical
industries, tin from cans
etc.
and its residues, D.D.T and
marathon residues present
on the plant product, tin
from can droppings of
rodents, larvae in foods.

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Effects of Adulterated Food

FOOD IMPRUITY CONTAMINATED FOOD FOOD ALLERGY

LACK OF NUTRITION HEALTH ISSUE

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Different food items and their adulterants
Food & drink items Adulterant/extraneous Purpose Type of adulteration
substances
Ghee Vanaspati, anatta, & oleomargarine To make more yellow Intentional

Milk Water, skim milk To increase volume Intentional

Condensed milk Paneer, khoya To give rich texture Intentional

Butter Vegetable oil, anotto, banana, oleo To increase volume & Intentional
margarine make yellowish
Ice cream Starch, rice powder or wheat flour To thicken cream Intentional

Tea leaves Black/Bengal gram dal husk with To add color Intentional
color
Red wine Juice of blueberries To attract/produce deep Intentional
blue precipitate with lead
acetate

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Different food items and their adulterants
Food & drink items Adulterant/extraneous Purpose Type of adulteration
substances
Chilli powder Brick powder To increase weight Intentional

Sugar Chalk powder To increase amount Intentional

Oils Rancid oil To increase volume Intentional

Coriander powder Cow dung powder To increase amount Intentional

Pulses Lathyrus sativus To increase weight Intentional

Mustard oil Argemone seed To add bulk and weight Intentional

Black pepper Papaya seed To add bulk Intentional

Green chillies& peas Malachite green To give bright glowing green Intentional
color

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Different food items and their adulterants
Food & drink items Adulterant/extraneous Purpose Type of adulteration
substances
Common salt White powdered stone,chalk To increase amount Intentional

Coffee Chicory, roasted barley To add bulk and color Intentional

powder, tamarind
seeds

Honey Molasses, cane sugar To increase volume Intentional

Wheat Ergot (poisonous fungus) To increase weight Incidental

Jaggery powder Chalk powder To increase amount Intentional

Others like preservatives, etc. Formalin, etc. To increases shelf life Incidental

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Melamine and Chinese Milk Supply, 2008

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80% OF MILK WAS ADULTERATED WITH WATER, UREA, STARCH AND
DETERGENT

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Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya
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GHEE or BUTTER : VANASPATHI

Take a tea spoon full of butter or ghee in a test tube

Add Concentrated hydrochloric acid and a pinch of sugar to it

Stir well and allow to settle for five minutes

Crimson red colour appears in the lower layer if vanaspathi is present in the
sample

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Cooking oil : Argemone oil

Take about 5 ml of cooking oil in

a test tube

Add 5 ml of concentrated nitric

acid to it

A reddish brown colour appears

if argemone oil is present in it

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 In rural areas, the problem is more distressing than in urban zones.
Therefore, awareness campaigns and monitoring agencies of the
government are required

 Since consumers are at the end of food chain, they should form
associations and fight for their rights to get safe foods

 With rapid growth in urbanization, more attention is needed for more

efficient food processing and distribution systems to make food not only
readily available but free from adulteration and contamination

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TURMERIC

UTTAR BANGA KRISHI Viswavidyalaya

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HONEY

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ASAFOETIDA

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CHILLI POWDER

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