Food Adulteration

Food adulteration refers to the alteration of food quality that takes place deliberately. It includes the addition of ingredients to modify different properties of food products for economic advantage. Color, appearance, taste, weight, volume, and shelf life are such food properties.

The food industry includes manufacturing, packaging, processing, wholesale and distribution of food products. Compromising quality of these products is essentially compromising the health and safety of the populace of the country. Therefore, the quality and standard of food that reaches the public has to be above a certain benchmark. The food adulteration laws basically set this benchmark. Adulteration of food is defined as “the addition or subtraction of any substance to or from food so that the natural composition and quality of food substance is affected”.[1] This results in an inferior quality of the food. This can either be done intentionally for making some kind of profit or it can happen unintentionally due to the negligence of the person handling the food item. In either of the case, the person is held responsible for food adulteration under the laws of the country.


Food adulteration is on a rise in the country as revealed by various statistics.

According to the records of health and family welfare ministry from the financial year 2012-13, 20% of our food is either adulterated or substandard.
The amount of adulterated food in the market has seen an increase from 8% to 20% from the year 2008-09 to 2012-13.
32% of the packaged food products that we consume are genetically modified.
According to a survey conducted by FSSAI on adulteration of milk, nearly 70% of the milk is adulterated with water being the most common adulterant. The surprising result of the survey was that even detergent was found to be one of the adulterants which is a major health hazard.
Therefore, a check on food adulteration is very crucial to keep the adulterers within check.

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