FOOD ADULTERATION

PAMILA P
2017016029
 INTRODUCTION
• Food Adulteration can be defined as the practice of
adulterating food or contamination of food materials
by adding a few substances, which are collectively
called adulterants.
• Addition of these adulterants reduces the value
of nutrients in food and also contaminates the food,
which is not fit for consumption.
Adulteration Includes
• Intentional addition, substitution or abstraction or substances
which adversely affect the purity and quality of foods
• incidental contamination of foods with deleterious substances
such as toxins and insecticides due to ignorance, negligence or
lack of proper storage facilities.
• contamination of the food with harmful insects, micro-organism
like bacteria, fungus, moulds etc. during production, storage
and handling.
 Why is Food Adulteration done?

• Practiced as a part of the business strategy.

• An Imitation of some other food substance.
• Lack of knowledge of proper food consumption.
• To increase the quantity of food production and sales.

• Increased food demand for a rapidly growing population.

• To make maximum profit from food items by fewer
investments.
 Causes of food adulteration

•  In some cases, food adulteration is a part of the

business strategy, which is done to increase the
profits of the seller.
• To increase the quantity of the product.
• Lack of awareness among the general public on food
consumption.
• Lack of government initiatives to prevent the
adulteration of food.
• Increased demand for certain food items.
 TYPES OF FOOD ADULTERATION
Intentional adulteration done intentionally to add volume,
texture, taste or stability to the items. This is done to increase
the profit for the seller.
• Examples:  Adding sand, brick powder, chalk powder, water,
mineral oil and stones.
 Incidental Adulteration:
• Incidental adulteration takes place when foreign materials are
added to a food due to ignorance, negligence, or improper
storage facilities.
• Examples: Insects in the food due to poor packaging.
INTENTIONAL ADULTERANTS
Name of the Adulteration Detection of adulteration
food
Asafoetida Soap stone Shake with water, Soap stone or other
(pumice stone) earthy matter will settle to the bottom.
or other earthy
matter
chalk Shake sample with carbon tetrachloride.
Asafoetida settle down, Decant the top
layer and add dil HCl to the residue
Effervescence shows presence of chalk.
Name of Adulteration Detection of adulteration
the food
Black Dried seeds of Papaya seeds are shrunken, oval in shape and
pepper papaya fruit greenish brown or brownish black in colour and
has repulsive flavour quite distinct from the bite
of black pepper.

Light Berries Light Berries or papaya seeds float on spirit or

carbon tetrachloride
Bengal Yellow maize Rubbing with fingers and roughness indicates
gram flour flour presence of maize flour

Metanil Yellow •Shake portion of sample with cold or warm

water.
•The water becomes yellowish and on treatment
with few drops of concentrated HCl turns magnets
red.
Name of Adulteration Detection of adulteration
the food
Edible oil Argemone oil •Add concentrated nitric acid to a sample and
shake carefully.
• Red to reddish brown colour in acid layer
indicates the presence of argemone oil

Mineral oil •Take 2 ml of edible oil and add an equal quantity

of N/2 alcoholic potash.
• Heat in boiling water bath for 15 minutes and
add 10 ml of water.
• Any turbidity shows the presence of mineral oil.

Castor oil •Dissolve some oil in petroleum ether in a test

tube and cool in ice salt mixture.
• Presence of turbidity within 5 minutes indicates
the presence of oil.
Name of Adulteration Detection of adulteration
the food

Ghee or Vanaspati •Take about one teaspoonful of melted ghee or

Butter butter with equal quantity concentrated HCL in a
test tube and add to it a pinch of cane sugar.
•Shake well for one minute and test it after 5
minutes.
• Appearance of crimson colour in lower (acidic)
layer shows the presence of vanaspati.
• This test is specific for seasame oil which is
compulsorily added to vanaspathi.
• Some of coaltar dyes also give a positive test.
Name of Adulteration Detection of adulteration
the food
Ghee or Mashed •Add a drop of iodine solution.
Butter potato, sweet •Iodine which is brownish in colour turns to
potato and blue if starches are present.
other starches •Iodine solution is prepared by dissolving 2.5 g
of iodine crystals and 3 g potassium iodine in
wates to make solution of 100 ml.
Common White Stir a spoonful of simple salt in a glass of water,
salt Powdered The presence of chalk will make the solution
stone, chalk white and other insoluble impurities settle
down.
Name of Adulteration Detection of adulteration
the food
Wheat Maida When dough is prepared from resultant wheat flour,
flour more water has to be used and chapathies prepared
out of this will blow out.
The normal taste of chapathies prepared out of
wheat is some what sweetish whereas those
prepared out of adulterated wheat flour will taste
insipid.
•Extract the sample and petroleum ether and add 13
N H2SO4 (Make up 88 ml of conc: H2SO4 to 250 ml
with distilled water) to the extract.
•Appearance of red colour which does not disappear
with distilled water indicates adulteration.

Chalk powder •Treat sample with hot dilute HCl.

and lime •The bubbling of gas indicates carbon dioxide from
powder chalk or other carbonates.
 DETECTION FROM SWEETING AGENT

SUGAR
Chalk powder:
• Dissolve 10 gm of sample in a glass of water, allow
settling, Chalk will settle down at the bottom.
Urea:
• On dissolving in water it gives a smell of ammonia.
Chalk powder:
• Dissolve 10 gm of sample in a glass of water, allow
to settle, chalk will settle down at the bottom.
 DETECTION FROM SWEETING AGENT

HONEY
Sugar solution:
• A cotton wick dipped in pure honey when lighted with a match
stick burns and shows the purity of honey.
• If adulterated, the presence of water will not allow the honey
to burn, If it does; it will produce a cracking sound.
 Detection of Chicory in Coffee & Chocolate Powder

• Generally sprinkle the coffee

or chocolate powder sample
on the surface of water in a
glass.
• Coffee & Chocolate powder
float over the water but
chicory begins to sink down
within few seconds.
• The falling chicory powder
particle leave behind a trail of
color due to large amount of
caramel.
 Adulteration of cake

• Some manufacturers choose to blend

lard or tallow with other vegetable
oils to produce shortening, margarine
and other specialty food oils
• Shortening provides a heat transfer
medium, lubricity and flavour to fried
foods, aeration, lubricity, and
structure to cakes, icings, fillings.
creame fillers, and whipped toppings,
baked pastries, bread and sweet rolls.
• Identification of synthetic food colors
adulteration by paper chromatography
and spectrophotometric methods
Adulteration of cake
 ADULTEARATION OF FOOD WITH COLOURS

• Metanil yellow a non-permitted colour is a common

adulterant in popular foods like laddu, toor dal and
turmeric which could be due to its easy availability and
reasonable cost.
• Spices like chilli powder are found to contain non-
permitted colours like sudan dye. Metanil yellow may
cause allergy urticaria, rhinitis, nausea and vomiting.
• All the non-permitted colours are mutagenic and most of
them have been identified as potential carcinogens.
ADULTEARATION OF FOOD WITH COLOURS

• Lead chromate causes lead poisoning epigastric pain,

nausea, constipation and anaemia. Potassium
dichromate in curry powder (dal) can cause gripping
pain in the abdomen and giddiness.
• The common signs of lead poisoning are nausea,
abdominal with mercuric salts contain large amounts
of mercury.
 PREVENTION OF FOOD
ADULTERATION(PFA) ACT, 1954 AND
RULES 1955
• This Act was enacted in the year 1954, which has been in
force since june 1955.
• The objective of this Act was to protect the consumers against
the supply of inferior quality or adulterated food.
• It also intended to prevent fraud or deception and encourages
fair trade practices.
• The Act specifies standards for various food articles in terms
of minimum quality in order to ensure safety in the
consumption of food items and for safe guarding against
harmful impurities and adulteration.
Case Study
• NIN studies in 2004 shows that excessive intake
of synthetic colours, even though permitted,
may, lead to toxic manifestations in humans.
• The study also showed that various ready to eat
foods contained non-permitted colours.
• The use of non-permitted colours was found to
be more in hard boiled sugar confectioneries
and bakery food.
THANK YOU

PAMILA P
2017016029