Food adulteration involves lowering the quality of food by removing vital components or adding inferior substances known as adulterants like marble pieces in grains, colors in pulses and sweets, lime in wheat flour, and argemone oil in ghee and butter. Adulterated food can cause health issues like headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and even cancer from colors like metanil yellow. The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act regulates standards and punishes traders who violate them. Common detection methods identify adulterants through magnets, visual sorting, floating tests, and color changes with acids.

2. Food Adulteration
Barkath T N

3. Module Objectives
Adulteration
Food Adulteration
Adulterants
Effects of food adulteration
Detection of food adulteration
Adulteration and Law
Questions

4. What is Adulteration?
• Reducing the purity of an article by the addition of a
foreign or inferior substance

5. Food Adulteration
• The process of lowering the nutritive value of food
either by removing a vital component or by adding
substances of inferior quality, is called food
adulteration.
• The substance that is used to lower the quality is
known as adulterant.

6. Common Adulterants
• Food grains and grams- marble pieces, sand particles, clay
gilts, soap stone pieces.
• Pulses- kesari dhal – Colours
• Wheat flow Maida-powdered lime –
talcum powder
• Turmeric powder (Haldi)- metanil
yellow
• Pepper- dry papaya seeds
• Chilli powder- coloured saw dust
• Sweets- colours not permitted
• Honey- jaggery – sugar
• Tea- coloured tea leaves after
removing the essence

7. Effects of adulteration
on humans
• Symptoms like headache, gastro-intestinal disorders,
muscular pain, drowsiness etc. appear, if adulterated
food substances are used regularly.

8. How dangerous are these
adulterants??
• The argemone oil used to adulterate ghee and butter is
highly toxic. It causes a disease known as dropsy.
Watery fluid collecting in some parts of the body is the
main symptom. It affects the normal functioning of the
body. It may also paralyse the limbs.
• Metanil yellow used to brighten the colour of pulses,
turmeric powder and sweet meats is a coal-tar dye. It
may cause cancer.

9. • Washing soda often added to powdered sugar and
other food items, may cause intestinal disorders.
• Food items prepared under unhygienic conditions and
stale foods cause food poisoning.

10. Detection of food adulteration
• Tea powder and Soji (rava) : Adulterants : Iron filings:
Spread the tea leaves or soji on a paper. Draw a magnet
over it. The iron filings if present, are attracted by the
magnet.
• Rice and wheat : Adulterants : Sand grit, marble
pieces, soap stone pieces. These are visually detected
and removed by sorting, handpicking and washing.

11. • Coffee powder : Adulterant- Tamarind seed powder:
Two teaspoons of coffee powder is added to water in a
tumbler. Coffee powder floats and the adulterants
sink.
• Cooking oil : Adulterant- Argemone oil: About 5 ml of
cooking oil is taken in a test tube and 5 ml of
concentrated nitric acid is added to it. A reddish brown
colour appears if argemone oil is present in it.

12. Adulteration and Law
• The Government of India has promulgated an Act called
the “Prevention of Food Adulteration Act’ in the year
1954.
• The Act has been periodically amended to check
dishonest practices of traders. If the traders violate
the standards mentioned in the Act, they are
punishable under law.
• The quality controlling agencies like Indian Standards
Institution (ISI) and Directorate of Marketing and
Inspection (AGMARK) test the food products for their
quality periodically.