Food Adulteration - Meaning, Types, Methods and Examples

Food is significant for the survival of life. Food that we eat gives us nutrition and helps to run the metabolism of the body. Food for our daily diet includes fruits, vegetables, grains, rice, etc. Due to overpopulation, natural resources are depleting, and food adulteration is practised. Nowadays, we see small pebbles in cereals, darkly stained vegetables, red meat, more water in the milk, etc. This poor quality or mixing of unhealthy elements with natural food items is known as food adulteration.

Table of Contents:

What is Food Adulteration?
Causes for Food Adulteration
Methods of Food Adulteration
Examples of Food Adulteration
Prevention of Food Adulteration
Practice Problems On Food Adulteration

What is Food Adulteration?

Food adulteration is the practice of contamination of food items by adding poor quality or unhealthy substances for economic profits. These substances are called adulterants. By adding these adulterants to the food, the nutrient value of the natural food is reduced and contaminates the food.

Despite food adulteration being a legal offence, it is commonly practised in many countries. Food adulteration is done in all essential food products such as dairy products, meat, fruits, vegetables, oils, cereals, etc. These contaminated food materials are harmful for consumption.

Causes for Food Adulteration

Food adulteration is commonly practised in many developing countries to meet the demand of overpopulation. Some of the reasons why food adulteration is done given below:

Food adulteration is a sort of business strategy to gain more profit by providing cheaper quality products.
Imitating the food product which is actually in demand.
Due to a lack of knowledge about the hazardous effect of food adulteration, it is still consumed by people.
Government inefficiency in controlling food adulteration.
To gain maximum profit by minimising the investment for the production.
To increase the food production for a steadily increasing population.
It increases the quantity of food production and sales in the market.

Food Adulteration Methods

Food adulteration is practised in various methods. Some of them are mentioned below:

Addition of artificial and harmful chemicals for faster ripening of fruits.
Mixing of pebbles, sand, clay or mud with food products. Mixing of decayed fruits and vegetables with good ones to conceal the defects.
Substituting unhealthy and cheap food constituents for healthy substances alters the nutritional value of the original ones.
Addition of toxic artificial colours and dyes and unpermitted preservatives to attract customers and increase the shelf life of the products, respectively.
Changing the true manufacturing and expiry dates, list of ingredients and preservatives.

Examples of Food Adulteration

Here are some of the food products which are contaminated and the effects of consumption.

Food Products	Adulterant	Hazardous effects
Milk	Water, soap powder	Loss of nutrition and stomach disorder
Tea	Artificial colouring agents	Liver disorders
Ghee, butter	Vanaspati, starch powder	Intestinal problem
Sugar	Chalk powder, urea, artificial sweetener, etc	Kidney failure and stomach disorders
Edible oils	Mineral oil, castor oil artificial colours.	Gallbladder cancer, stomach allergies, cardiac arrest, paralysis, obesity and increased cholesterol.
Honey	Molasses, dextrose, sugar	Stomach disorders
Chilli, coriander, turmeric powders	Chalkdust, food dyes, yellow metal dye, lead metal, sawdust, redbrick powder, dye, lead, pesticide residue, soluble salts, and water-soluble synthetic colours.	Cancer, stomach disorder, mental toxicity, tumour, increased blood pressure, etc.

Prevention of Food Adulteration

Here are some important methods to prevent food adulteration:

There should be strict laws and government intervention on the industry level to check food adulteration.
Avoid buying deep or dark-coloured groceries to prevent adulterated food.
Avoid consuming processed food.
Check the tinned or canned food products for leakages or puffing.
Always wash your fruits and vegetables in water before consuming them.
Ensure to buy FSSAI-certified products and check the manufacturing dates, expiry dates and list of ingredients.

Practice Problems On Food Adulteration

Q1. Which of the following is not an adulterated food?

a. Ghee with vegetable oil
b. Harvested rice
c. Jam and candies
d. Dark pigmented vegetables

Ans: b. Harvested rice

Q2. Which of the following is practised to attract customers?

a. Artificial dye to food
b. Attractive hybrid vegetables
c. Increasing the expiry date
d. All of the above

Ans: d. All of the above

Q3. Which of the following is not a reason for food adulteration?

a. Increase in population
b. Business strategy
c. Economic profits
d. Nutritious food production

Ans: d. Nutritious food production.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is FSSAI?
Answer: FSSAI stands for Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). It is a department dealing with food-related concerns in various Ministries and Departments. It is responsible for managing and regulating the production, distribution and sale of organic foods.

Q2. How to detect food adulteration in milk?
Answer: Food adulteration should be determined to prevent harmful effects of consumption. For example, to determine adulterated milk, take some milk and add some water and shake the bottle well. If it settles down in a frothy layer, then the milk is pure. If it forms a thick layer, then the milk is adulterated.

Q3. What is a packaging hazard?
Answer: When packing the food in the packing material, it may interfere or mix with the food substance resulting in packaging hazards.