This diwali, Beware of Food Adulteration

How would you feel celebrating Diwali on a hospital bed with food poisoning? Pathetic right? I know.
Safe Diwali, green Diwali,everybody implements this notion by now.
No crackers, play safe. But have you ever given a thought on ‘eat safe’?
With Diwali bringing ‘Lakshmi’ in the home, everybody cherishes this festival of lights with sweets, snacks.
On such auspicious festivals, people make sweets like laddoos, Gulab Jamun in their homes itself.
Hey, but who has got time now? With such fast paced life, people prefer to buy savourings from the market.
When you go to the market, many shops come in your view. Some shops selling special savourings, traditional sweets and some modern snacks and varietal desserts. You stand there in the middle of the market, in a dilemma of what to buy and what not to. Delicious looking sweets tempt you to buy.
But do you know their back story?
Do you know what they consist?
That’s when you don’t apply your mind and buy whatever looks good. This mindset becomes the power of fraud, and people without conscience get victimized by food adulteration.

But what’s this heavy word ‘Adulteration’ means?

Food adulteration is an act of debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by admixture of inferior substances or by removal of some valuable ingredient. It can be intentional as well as incidental (mostly intentional).
Adulterated food has lower quality by the addition of substances which are injurious to health or by the removal of substances which are nutritious.
In festive season, few shops offer adulterated food because of low input cost, and high profit.
Most of the sweets are made of Milk, khoya, and ghee.
To be safe, you can check out if your sweet is poisonous or not, by doing few checks at home:

1. Milk:

Milk Adulteration

Have you seen your milkman adding water to milk to increase the quantity, that’s adulteration? Though it’s not harmful yet it reduces its nutrient value. Test it by placing a drop of milk on a polished slanting surface. The diluted milk glides down quickly, while the pure milk glides down slowly, leaving a white trail behind. Synthetic milk is also adulterated and has a bitter aftertaste. It gives a soapy feeling on rubbing between the fingers and turns yellowish on heating. Adulterated milk also contains starch.

2. Khoya & chenna:

Often adulterated with starch, you can test it by just boiling a small sample in water, cool it then and add a few drops of iodine solution. A blue colour indicates the presence of starch.

3.Ghee/ Vanaspati:

Vanaspati is edible vegetable oil that undergoes the process of hydrogenation. Since almost every sweet and savory product uses oil it could lead to intestine related problems. Using adulterated oil regularly can also lead to high cholesterol levels. Adulterated Ghee contains animal fat which increases the risk serum cholesterol and triglycerides levels. A simple home test can give a red signal to adulterated Ghee. Just add a little sugar and some hydrochloric acid to ghee and vanaspati. If it turns crimson it means it is adulterated.

While you buy, distribute sweets among your friends and family, check it beforehand. After all, prevention is better than cure.
Have a prosperous and safe Diwali.

Source :
FSSAI