Food Adulteration and its impact on our Health

Food Adulteration is one of the major concerns we are facing nowadays. One thing that keeps on declining our health is food adulteration. Food adulteration is defined as the process of addition of harmful substances in the food to delete the natural composition from the food while diminishing its overall quality. We often choose the healthy eating track to escalate our health journey but let us tell you that due to the sudden rise in the demand for organic and healthy food items, most of the healthy food that you are consuming today is highly adulterated and is affecting your health in its own way. As per a report from The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), nearly one-fifth of the food products tested every year is found adulterated.

There are various types of adulterations made in diverse food items such as the addition of mineral oils, cobalt and non-permitted colours that increase the risk of various health ailments. Food adulteration not only diminishes the food quality but also impacts your health like no other.

Food adulteration is considered extremely impure and unsafe. The activity of food adulteration could be intentional, accidental or unintentional. The harmful effects of pesticides and fertilisers, inappropriate food-handling and bad methods of packaging are also known as food adulteration and it comes under the tab of unintentional food adulteration.

Effects of Food Adulteration
There are various negative effects of consuming adulterated foods. Food adulteration fills up with toxic substances like lead, cobalt, minerals oils and other harmful colours that can easily risk health ailments like cancer, infertility and brain damage increases. Consuming adulterated food not only cuts down the vital nutrients from your foods but also makes them toxic which can lead to paralysis and eventually death.

Right from long-term effects like colon, peptic ulcers, liver diseases like cirrhosis and liver failure, heart diseases, a blood disorder, bone marrow abnormality and kidney damage to short-term effects like constipation, digestive issues, bloating and stomach-ache- consuming adulterated foods can affect multiple organs of your body and therefore detection of these adulterants is extremely important.

Here is a list of various food items that are commonly adulterated:

• Milk: Commonly adulterated with water, chalk powder, detergent and even urea.
• Wheat and other grains: Commonly adulterated with a fungus known as ergot.
• Vegetables: Commonly adulterated with chemical dyes.
• Honey: Commonly adulterated with molasses sugar.
• Dal: Commonly adulterated with harmful food colours.
• Spices: Commonly adulterated with artificial food colours.
• Sweets: Commonly adulterated with starches and silver varks.

Footnote
Keep a tab on the food you are consuming and if you are feeling sick even after consuming healthy food then make sure that you check your food and run it with some home remedies tests to check if your food is adulterated or not. Aware more and more people about food adulteration and its serious health impact to keep yourself healthy and hearty. Observing the type of the food you are consuming means watching your health and well-being.