Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to meet legal standards. Adulteration is an addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which may result in the loss of the actual quality of food items.
Adulteration of food items is commonly practised all over the world by the trade bodies. When the price of food production is higher than the price which the consumer is prepared to pay, the seller is compelled to supply a food product of inferior quality, thus occurs the adulteration.
Adulteration is one of the biggest problem faced at the present time and all food items like milk and milk products, vegetables oil and fats, spices and condiments, beverages like coffee, tea, even rice and water are adulterated from many ways.
Adulteration causes many diseases like cancer, lathyrism (neurological disease often resulting in weakness and paralysis of the legs.), liver disease, cardiac failure, kidney diseases and nervous system related diseases.
Besides the common adulterer food items, below are the items which our children and youngsters are consumed daily in the form of snacks.
Chocolates
Chocolates may be regarded as the world’s most popular snack food. An average American consumes over four kgs of chocolates annually, while in Switzerland the world’s leading chocolate producer, a Swiss consumes over double this amount.
South Asia also have a sweet tooth and consumes a considerable amount of sweet, including chocolates. However, it has recently come to light that chocolates can become contaminated in spite of the fact that it has been consumed for centuries without any complaint of any apparent ill effect.
Some of these contaminations are discussed as - heavy metal contamination: It might sound surprising, but heavy metal contamination can be a problem in the case of chocolate too! Since cocoa powder is the key ingredient for making chocolates, the food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) has fixed the upper permissible levels for two heavy metals, these are lead and copper.
As per the food safety and standards (contaminants, toxins and residues) regulations, 2011, the maximum level of these heavy metals in cocoa powder are as:
Lead: 5.0 ppm by weight, on the dry fat-free substance.
Copper: 7.0 ppm by weight on the fat-free substance. (Most contaminants are expressed as Parts per Million (PPM).
This means that the concentration of the particular substance is very low, even though the regulatory agency may consider it a significant amount.
One PPM is one part of million or the value is equivalent to the absolute fractional amount multiplied by one million.
Therefore, these metals can cause health hazards in case of continuous consumption of the chocolates containing lead and copper in the upper permissible levels. The lead exposure can cause damage to the central nervous systems, leading to learning difficulties and lower IQ in infants and young children.
Copper exposure can cause general weakness, hypothyroidism, depression, constipation and low blood pressure.
Potato chips and noodles
As per the study was done by the Ahmedabad based Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS) on some popular brands of potato chips/noodles and they revealed that almost all the brands available in the market contain harmful levels of sodium and fat, as excess fat content would trigger health problems like obesity and excessive usage of sodium could cause hypertension.
To make these potato chips and noodles tastier, manufacturers are using taste enhancers, commonly known as E 631.This E 631 is Disodium inosinate and comes from inosinic acid and is naturally found in a variety of animals, such as pigs or fish. This taste enhancer in the potato chips and noodles may cause diseases like Asthma and gout.
Soft drinks
The soft drink sector of the market is a much bigger money-spinner than the bottled water segment.
As per the tests, conducted by the pollution monitoring laboratory (PML) of the centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
The agency analysed the content of 12 its growing popularity means that children and teenagers, who glug these bottles, are drinking a toxic potion.
Soft drink brands sold in and around Delhi and were tested for organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides and synthetic pyrethroids - all commonly used in India as insecticides.
The test results were shocking as those of bottled water samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides: Lindane, DDT, Malathion and Chlorpyrifos.
The higher level of these pesticides and insecticides present in the soft drinks may cause cancer and damage to the nervous and reproductive system in the humans.
Tail piece
There have been various instances of food adulteration in Jammu Kashmir, and people are suffering from gastric problems due to consumption of adulterated food items.
It is highly unlikely that more legislation or increase fines and jail terms alone will reduce adulteration, particularly given the corruption that exists in the enforcement area and low conviction rate.
Greater consumer vigilance and action can help to improve the situation. But such efforts are not fruitful unless consumers themselves are aware of their rights and responsibilities.
Under these circumstances, consumer literacy is the need of the hour with special attention to the low-income groups who suffer the most.
