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Food Adulteration: Dr.M.Dhrakshayani

Food adulteration occurs through the addition of foreign or inferior substances or removal of vital elements, reducing the food's quality. There are three types of adulteration: intentional, incidental, and natural. Intentional adulteration knowingly adds undesirable substances like sand or removes items to reduce costs and increase quantity. Incidental adulteration unintentionally contaminates food during growth, storage, processing or handling. Natural adulteration involves substances that naturally occur in some foods like lead in water pipes or pesticides in soil taken up by plants. Simple tests can detect adulterants like argemone oil in vegetable oils or chalk powder, excessive bran or sand in wheat flour.

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172 views

Food Adulteration: Dr.M.Dhrakshayani

Food adulteration occurs through the addition of foreign or inferior substances or removal of vital elements, reducing the food's quality. There are three types of adulteration: intentional, incidental, and natural. Intentional adulteration knowingly adds undesirable substances like sand or removes items to reduce costs and increase quantity. Incidental adulteration unintentionally contaminates food during growth, storage, processing or handling. Natural adulteration involves substances that naturally occur in some foods like lead in water pipes or pesticides in soil taken up by plants. Simple tests can detect adulterants like argemone oil in vegetable oils or chalk powder, excessive bran or sand in wheat flour.

Uploaded by

Neil Porlaje
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Dr.M.

Dhrakshayani

FOOD ADULTERATION
Definition
Food adulteration is the process by which the quality of the
food or its products is reduced through the addition of a
foreign or inferior substance or the removal of a vital element.
Food adulteration is of 3 types
 Intentional adulteration

 Incidental adulteration

 Natural adulteration
Intentional adulteration

Intentional adulteration means knowingly adding


some undesirable substances to the food or
removing/replacing some of the items and making it
of poor quality. This is done for making extra profits
by reducing the cost of production or by increasing
the quantity. Intentional adulterants include sand,
marble chips, stones, mud, chalk powder, water,
foreign seeds and leaves etc.
Many of these can easily detected
Incidental adulteration

Sometimes food gets incidentally or


unintentionally contaminated in fields (e.g. crops)
during growth and harvesting, storage, processing,
transportation and handling by the producers as well
as by the consumer. Pesticide and insect residues,
metals, droppings of rodents, larvae of insects, micro-
organism may enter the food at any stage.
Natural adulteration
Natural adulteration occurs due to the presence of
certain chemicals or harmful substance naturally
occurring in foods e.g. lead from water pipes joints
mixes into the water. Pesticides seep into the soil
with water which are taken up by the plants grown on
such soil. Some species of fish, some varieties of
pulses, mushrooms etc. are toxic for human
consumption.
Simple tests to detect food adulterants
Vegetable oil
adulteration- argemone oil
Test- add 5 ml, cone. HNO3 to 5 ml sample. Shake carefully.
Allow the layer to separate. Crimson colour in the lower acid
layer indicates adulteration
Wheat flour
Adulteration- (i) excessive sand and dirt
Test- shake a little quantity of sample with about 10 ml of
carbon tetra chloride and allow to stand. Grit and sandy matter
will collect at the bottom
(ii) Excessive bran
Test- sprinkle on water surface. Bran will float on the surface.
(iii) Chalk powder
Test- shake sample with dil. Hcl effervescence indicates
chalk.

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