Skip to main content

Slow death due to Food Adulteration


It is a known fact that our food has been adulterated , either the food has pesticide or harmful adulterants. We are slowly poisoning our bodies and no one is taking a stand. The Delhi High Court quoted on a report on food adulteration submitted by an Expert Committee, observed that it was ‘alarmed’ with the findings of the report, stating alarmingly high levels of harmful pesticide residues in food content consumed daily by people in Delhi.

The problem is widespread and increasing and that is because the citizen are not doing anything about it. There are protests for films hurting our religious sentiment, but this is our basic need and no one seems to take it seriously.

The products are marketed in a tricky manner, which is usually cheating the customers. However, FSSAI has made strong laws against adulteration, however it is still not stopping the small vendors and businessmen to cheat citizens. Here are some shocking facts, the Annual Public Laboratory Testing Report for 2014-15 brought out by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) says that of the 49,290 samples of food items it tested, 8,469 were found adulterated or misbranded.

Common Adulterants in Food:

Do you know the adulterants that are added to our food? 

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. This increases the profits derived from a given volume of milk. 

Ice cream

Most common adulterants in ice cream are pepperonil, ethylacetate,butraldehyde, emilacetate, nitrate, washing powder etc are not less than poison. Pepperoil is used as a pesticide and ethyl acetate causes horrible diseases affecting lungs, kidneys and heart. 

Tea and Coffee:

Tea leaves are usually adulterated with same coloured leaves, some might not even be edible. Several cases of liver infection across the country have been reported due to consuming adulterated tea.In the case of coffee, chicory is mixed with the powder. 

Milk, Paneer, Khoya:

Urea, Starch and washing powder is added. 

Honey:

There are so many varieties of honey available in the market, but due to its steep price, honey is commonly adulterated with molasses sugar to increase the bottle quantity. 

Tumeric:

Tumeric is mixed with metanil yellow or coloured chalk powder . 

Mustard:

Argemone seeds are regularly added. 

Vegetable Oils:

Castor oil, Mineral oil, Argemone oil, Kranaja oil is added. 

Arhar Dal:

The most commonly adulterated dal is arhar dal and it’s adulterated with metanil yellow. Metanil yellow is a principal non-permitted food colour used extensively in India. The effect of long-term consumption of this food colour is on the brain causing neurotoxicity.

The latest news states that The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed a punishment of upto a life term in prison for those adulterating food products as part of a more stringent law that is being worked out to curb this horrible practice. The FSSAI has issued the draft amendments to the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, which was notified in 2011.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why We All Need to Know About Food Adulteration Tests

A few months ago, Goa people suffered a shock when they realized that the fish and eggs they were so fond of were adulterated. The issue became so important that even hours were spent during state assembly sessions to discuss it. If you have also been aware of the issue of adulteration and you are worried that the foods you and your loved ones are consuming are not pure enough, then you should enhance your knowledge of food adulteration tests.  These tests can be conducted at home or in a lab. You should seriously consider doing the food adulteration tests on all the items you consume because of the following reasons. The Stats According to the data revealed by the Public Health Foundation of India, 80 percent of all premature deaths are related to contaminated water and food. The Amount of Pesticides Used is Too High Overuse of fertilizers and pesticides is a common problem in India. This is why a common contaminant that can be found in most food adulteration tests...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Crux of the Consumer Protection Act

We all are consumers because we consume everything from necessities like food, shelter, and clothing and enjoy other products like soaps, cosmetics, smartphones, laptops, toothbrush, etc. When we act as a consumer and buy stuff from the market, we expect to get it at a fair price, quality, quantity, and information about usage and other relevant information to make it a value for money deal. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases in which a consumer is cheated because he/she doesn’t get a fair quality, quantity or value for money. The Consumer Protection Act In such cases, we often vent our feelings on social media or bad mouth the brand to our family and friends. What we don’t do and what we should do is to gain more information on the Consumer Protection Act. This act was crafted in 1986 with an aim to help resolve consumer grievances simply and quickly.   It also aims to protect customer’s interests in cases of defective or insufficient delivery of products or services. ...
Post a Comment
Read more