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Food adulteration has now become a major problem to public health. The recent and raging controversy over high lead content in Nestle’s 2-minute Maggi noodles has highlighted the need to revise food safety laws and adopt stricter norms.
With technological advances, the adulterants used in the products, which we use in our day-to-day life, are so similar to natural foodstuff making it difficult for a common man to detect them.
Given below are a few easy tips to help you check food at home to avoid adulteration:
Milk: Add a drop or two of iodine solution to a few drops of milk. If the solution turns blue then, it contains starch (which is used to give it a thick, rich texture).
Butter/ghee: Take small amount of ghee or butter in test-tube and heat it up. Take a small amount of sugar and dissolve it in 10 ml of hydrochloric acid (Hcl). Now, add the solution to the mixture of butter and ghee. If it turns red, then the ghee or butter is adulterated.
Mustard oil: Take small amount of mustard oil in a test-tube, add a few drops of nitric acid to it. Shake and heat the mixture for 2-3 minutes. Appearance of red colour indicates that argemone oil is added to mustard oil.
Turmeric powder, dals and pulses: Take a spoon of dal, turmeric or besan powder and let it dissolve in lukewarm water. Add a few drops of hydrochloric acid to it. If it turns pink, violet or purple, it shows that Metanil yellow is present in it.
Sugar: Take a spoon of sugar, dissolve it in water and allow it to settle. While sugar will dissolve in water, chalk will not and thus will remain as residue at the bottom.
