The festive season brings its own challenges, and one of them is ensuring the snacks and sweets you buy are not adulterated.
“Sweets are one of the most contaminated items and with the pandemic, some may be looking to increase margins by adopting unfair methods,” says Edwina Raj, senior dietitian.
The most commonly adulterated item in India is milk and most sweets are made with dairy.
Food scientist Govardhan Singh says adulterants in milk may range from harmless items like water, added to increase volume, and starch, added to increase solids, to harmful items like detergent, which makes the liquid whiter, and urea, which increases protein content.
Edwina says sweets with silver foil are best avoided as they may be substituted with aluminium.
“The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India has put out new rules stating that the date of manufacture and the date of expiry must be printed on every box of sweets. Look out for markers like these,” she advises.
Is all adulterated food harmful? “Not always, but you are definitely not getting what you pay for and the nutritional value of the item is diminished with adulteration,” says Priyanka.
FSSAI has an extensive webpage dedicated to how to detect adulterants in a range of food items – fssai.
Govardhan Singh, food scientist, says the method used to check milk can also be used to check sweets.
How to check sweets To check for the presence of starch, add a few drops of iodine into a solution of the sweet and water.
To check for detergent, vigourously shake the dissolved sweet and water.
To check if the silver foil has been adulterated with aluminium, heat up some of the foil on spoon.