Abstract
Food adulteration is a prevalent issue in the food industry. It affects safety and quality of food and causes harm to the health of the consumer. To reduce incidence of adulteration in food, it is necessary to study adulterants being added to food. Food safety concerns arise when adulteration occurs for a variety of reasons. The act includes use of expired ingredients, deceptive adulterated food labels, addition of harmful compounds to food, and more. Tests and techniques for suspected food items that are commonly adulterated with certain food or non-food products are studied and described here. The detection of adulteration in food sectors can be done qualitatively and quantitatively. Various methods like chemical analysis, spectroscopic, and chromatographic techniques used to detect adulteration are reviewed. Various laws and regulations are in effect around the world in order to prevent adulteration and ensure food safety to protect the consumers. Regulatory agencies play an important role in putting a check to food adulteration by monitoring the quality of food and penalizing defaulters.
TopIntroduction
Food is one of the basic needs of every living being. Humans make food available in a processed or semi-processed form and consume it to support various physiological processes. Food commodities have always been vulnerable to fraudulent admixture or adulteration with cheaper inferior materials. Food fraud or adulteration is common, and such food adulteration degrades food quality, makes it dangerous to consume, and causes health problems in humans. Food fraud is defined as the intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging, as well as the making of false or misleading assertions about a product for financial advantage (Banti, 2020).
According to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, a food article is considered adulterated:
- 1.
if the article sold by a vendor is not of the nature, substance, or quality demanded by the purchaser and is to his prejudice, or is not of the nature, substance, or quality which it purports or represented to be;
- 2.
if the article contains any other substance which affects, or if the article is so processed as to affect, injuriously the nature, substance or quality thereof;
- 3.
if any inferior or cheaper substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the article to affect injuriously the nature, substance or quality thereof;
- 4.
if any constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted to affect injuriously the nature, substance or quality thereof;
- 5.
if the article had been prepared, packed, or kept under insanitary conditions whereby it has become contaminated or injurious to health;
- 6.
if the article consists wholly or in part of any filthy, putrid, rotten, decomposed, or diseased animal or vegetable substance or is insect-infested or is otherwise unfit for human consumption;
- 7.
if the article is obtained from a diseased animal;
- 8.
if the article contains any poisonous or other ingredients which renders it injurious to health;
- 9.
if the container of the article is composed, whether wholly or in part, of any poisonous or deleterious substance which renders its contents injurious to health;
- 10.
if any coloring matter other than that prescribed in respect thereof is present in the article, or if the amounts of the prescribed coloring matter which is present in the article are not within the prescribed limits of variability;
- 11.
if the article contains any prohibited preservative or permitted preservative above the prescribed limits;
- 12.
if the quality or purity of the article falls below the prescribed standard or its constituents are present in quantities not within the prescribed limits of variability, which render it injurious to health;
- 13.
if the quality or purity of the article falls below the prescribed standard or its constituents are present in quantities not within the prescribed limits of variability but which does not render it injurious to health;
With regard to food, the term “quality” means the products meet the requirements of an entire complex of criteria, properties, and peculiarities, which characterize the product’s degree of suitability based on its assessment and consumption. “Food safety” is a condition that ensures food will not cause harm to the consumer when prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use. It entails the handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illnesses. Quality and safety remain major challenges in the production of high-quality foods.
In order to ensure the quality of food, it is necessary to understand the foods that are regularly adulterated, the adulterants that are commonly employed in them, and the detrimental effects that these adulterants impose. This chapter examines many facets of adulteration, the health risks imposed by these adulterants, detection techniques, and legal responses around the world.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Technical Food Fraud Risk: There is no direct or indirect food safety risk, this indicates that material traceability may have been compromised and companies are no longer able to guarantee the safety of their food products.
Direct Food Safety Risks: Consumer is put at immediate risk, i.e., addition of melamine to milk powder results in acutely toxic exposure; hiding of substances resulting in undeclared allergens.
Horizon Scanning: A term that has been co-opted to the language of food fraud. Horizon scanning is the act of looking for and analyzing threats and opportunities that will emerge in the medium to long term. Within the food industry, horizon scanning refers to the act of collecting information about current trends in food production and predicted incidences that could increase the likelihood of food fraud for a particular food material.
Food Defense: An effort to prevent acts of adulteration that are intended to cause harm to a food business or to consumers, such as acts of terrorism or attempted extortion.
Vulnerability: It is a term of art and a basis for assessment methods in several contexts, including climate impact analysis, disaster management, and food security analysis. ‘Vulnerability’ is used because food fraud ‘risks’ do not exactly fit with the accepted definition of risk as something that has occurred frequently, will occur again and for which there is enough data to make quantitative assessments.
Economically Motivated Adulteration (EMA): The deliberate adulteration of food, motivated by greed or a political agenda. In case of economically motivated adulteration (EMA), aims is not to harm people but to inflate profits by fraudulent means.
Food Crimes: Food crime as serious fraud and related criminality in food supply chains. This definition also includes activity impacting on drink and animal feed. It can be seriously harmful to consumers, food businesses and the wider food industry.
Indirect Food Safety Risks: Consumer is put at risk through long-term exposure i.e. high levels of heavy metals in food supplements causing harm or lack of benefit- over longer period of time.
TACCP: Threat Assessment Critical Control Point (TACCP) helpful for prevention of malicious threats to food.
Intentional Adulteration: Although food fraud activities often involve the intentional adulteration of food with unauthorized substances, within the food safety industry, has recently been given a more specific meaning. And it is not related to food fraud at all. It is related to food defense, and more specifically to activities intended to cause wide scale harm to consumers.
Food Security: Defined by when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.