As the world is moving towards organic food, the incidents of food fraud have also started increasing. We often hear in the news about fake and adulterated food and sweets, especially during the festive season. When the sellers, in order to make more profit, use fake ingredients which are hazardous and are a huge threat to health and general well-being to make food items, it is referred to as adulterated. There are lots of cases where people fall ill after eating contaminated food and even if nothing happens immediately, adulterated food acts as a slow poison.
Consuming adulterated food can lead to several toxicities in the body that can result in heart failure, liver disorder, kidney disorder and nutritive deficiency in the body too. Therefore, it becomes very important to identify these adulterants and keep them away from our meals. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has released some tips to be safe from fake food:
1. FSSAI has advised the public to always opt for an authorized vendor and make sure to take a bill of the purchase.
2. Beware of fake websites and don’t fall for advertisements from unknown platforms.
3. The packaging has all the details, read them carefully and do not forget to check the nutrition label.
4. Make sure to check the manufacturing and expiry date and if the difference between date seems to be too long, then it's likely that the product is recycled.
Even after following these tips, you have doubt about the food that you have purchased, here are some easy tricks to identify the adulterated food ingredients at home:
Cheese
Usually is very difficult to identify processed cheese from natural ones as they both look identical, but putting cheese on a burning flame can help you in detecting the chemical laced cheese. The natural cheese easily melts on flame while the processed cheese takes a lot of time.
Rice
To check the adulterated rice, place a handful of rice on a hot pan. If the rice is fake, it will either start losing its colour and become transparent like plastic or melt away in the pan itself, while the real rice stays the same.
Vanilla Extract
To identify the real vanilla extract, pour some of it into a small glass and light a match on it. The real extract will catch fire and burn like a candle while the fake extract will not even catch fire.
Honey
Adulterated honey is very common in India. In order to test its authenticity, take a glass of water and mix one tablespoon of honey in it and add three drops of iodine to it. The pure honey will turn yellowish in colour while the adulterated will become blackish. The impure honey has a high quantity of flour in it.
Saffron
To test the originality of this expensive spice, take a glass of tap water and add a pinch of saffron to it. Real saffron will take time to dissolve and the strands will float on the water surface while the fake saffron will dissolve quickly and the impure strands will sink below the water.
Turmeric
Add a spoonful of turmeric powder to lukewarm water. In order to check the purity of turmeric, add a few drops of lemon to it. Adulterated turmeric will turn the water pink, purple or violet. And if there is another way of testing turmeric, when put in fire, pure turmeric will start to burn while adulterated will not ignite. The quality of red chilli can also be tested with this trick.
Salt
Testing the quality of salt is a very easy task. Just add one tsp salt to a glass of water. If the salt dissolves completely and water remains transparent, then it's pure but if it creates a cloud, the salt is impure. Usually, adulterated salt has chalk in it that makes the water cloudy.
Coffee
The best way to check adulteration in coffee is to mix a tablespoon of it with water. If it sinks to the bottom, then the coffee is real. However, if the coffee is laced with additives, it will float above the water level.
Ice Cream
Yes, you heard it right, even ice cream can adulterated. In order to test whether the delicious ice cream you are enjoying is real or not, add a few drops of lemon over ice cream in a bowl. If it starts bubbling then the ice cream has a high quantity of adulterants like washing powder while the real ice cream will just melt a little.
It's very important to test the originality of food items as any small adulteration can have very severe health effects on you and your family. So, follow these hacks and the guidelines of FSSAI and always purchase unadulterated food.
