22 % MILK IS ADULTERATED IN KARNATAKA
Beware, your daily glass of good health could actually be doing you harm. An all-state study has found that milk is adulterated with detergent, fat and even urea. Besides, it is diluted with water. Across the country, 68.4% of the samples were found contaminated.Only in Goa and Puducherry did 100% of the samples tested conform to required standards. At the other end were West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Mizoram, where not a single sample tested met the prescribed norms.
Only 22% of the milk samples randomly taken from the state for testing by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India did not meet the standards. In Kerala, this percentage was 28, 12 in Tamil Nadu and 6.7 in Andhra Pradesh. In Delhi, 70% of the 71 milk samples picked up by the government agency failed to conform to standards. Fifty samples were found to be contaminated with glucose and skim milk powder, usually added to milk in the lean season to enhance volumes.Other prominent states fared just a shade better than the national Around 89% of the samples tested from Gujarat t, 83% from J&K, 81% from Punjab, 76% from Rajasthan, 70% from Haryana and 65% from Maharashtra failed the test. Around half of the samples from Madhya Pradesh (48%) met a similar fate.
The samples for testing - in all 1,791 - were collected randomly and analyzed from 33 states and Union territories. These were sent to government laboratories like department of food and drug testing of Puducherry, Central Food Laboratory in Pune, Food Research and Standardization Laboratory in Ghaziabad, State Public Health Laboratory in Guwahati and Central Food Laboratory, Kolkata. They were tested for the presence of common adulterants such as fat, neutralizers, hydrogen peroxide, sugar, starch, glucose, urea, detergent, formalin and vegetable fat. Just around 31.5% of the total samples tested (565) conformed to the FSSAI standards while the rest 1,226 (68.4%) failed the test.
Detergent was found in 103 samples (8.4%). "This was mainly because the milk tanks were not properly washed. Detergents in milk can cause serious health problems," FSSAI official told TOI. The non-conforming samples in rural areas numbered 381 (31%) out of which 64 (16.7%) were packet milk and 317 (83.2%) were loose samples.
This only confirms that food adulteration is common in India. Even milk, consumed primarily by children, isn't spared. What's particularly worrying is the kind of substances used to adulterate, including toxic chemicals. This shows that the trade off between the risk of getting caught and the 'reward' of huge profits is skewed heavily in favour of the latter. The government must focus on raising the risks to the adulterator. One way of doing this is by hiking the penalty, including making it analogous to attempt to murder in extreme cases. It's equally important to regularly check foodstuff for adulteration and ensure speedy trials.
Only 22% of the milk samples randomly taken from the state for testing by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India did not meet the standards. In Kerala, this percentage was 28, 12 in Tamil Nadu and 6.7 in Andhra Pradesh. In Delhi, 70% of the 71 milk samples picked up by the government agency failed to conform to standards. Fifty samples were found to be contaminated with glucose and skim milk powder, usually added to milk in the lean season to enhance volumes.Other prominent states fared just a shade better than the national Around 89% of the samples tested from Gujarat t, 83% from J&K, 81% from Punjab, 76% from Rajasthan, 70% from Haryana and 65% from Maharashtra failed the test. Around half of the samples from Madhya Pradesh (48%) met a similar fate.
The samples for testing - in all 1,791 - were collected randomly and analyzed from 33 states and Union territories. These were sent to government laboratories like department of food and drug testing of Puducherry, Central Food Laboratory in Pune, Food Research and Standardization Laboratory in Ghaziabad, State Public Health Laboratory in Guwahati and Central Food Laboratory, Kolkata. They were tested for the presence of common adulterants such as fat, neutralizers, hydrogen peroxide, sugar, starch, glucose, urea, detergent, formalin and vegetable fat. Just around 31.5% of the total samples tested (565) conformed to the FSSAI standards while the rest 1,226 (68.4%) failed the test.
Detergent was found in 103 samples (8.4%). "This was mainly because the milk tanks were not properly washed. Detergents in milk can cause serious health problems," FSSAI official told TOI. The non-conforming samples in rural areas numbered 381 (31%) out of which 64 (16.7%) were packet milk and 317 (83.2%) were loose samples.
This only confirms that food adulteration is common in India. Even milk, consumed primarily by children, isn't spared. What's particularly worrying is the kind of substances used to adulterate, including toxic chemicals. This shows that the trade off between the risk of getting caught and the 'reward' of huge profits is skewed heavily in favour of the latter. The government must focus on raising the risks to the adulterator. One way of doing this is by hiking the penalty, including making it analogous to attempt to murder in extreme cases. It's equally important to regularly check foodstuff for adulteration and ensure speedy trials.
Prof. John Kurakar
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