Diwali News 2024: Easy Tests to Identify Pure, Adulterated Sweets and Dairy Products

With Diwali just around the corner, markets are flooded with sweets, making celebrations twice as joyful but also creating apprehensions regarding food safety. Adulterated sweets, khoya, mawa, and milk products are common in festive seasons, thus endangering consumer health. While the authorities have been working to minimize adulteration by conducting raids, synthetic substances and malpractices still prevail. To empower consumers, FSSAI has come out with simple home tests that can identify some of the most common adulterants in dairy and sweet products.

Diwali News 2024, Simple FSSAI Tests to Detect Adulteration in Sweets 

1.Water in Milk:Place a drop of milk on a polished, slanting surface. Pure milk flows slowly, leaving a mark, while adulterated milk flows quickly without a mark.
2. Detergent in Milk:Mix equal parts of milk and water, then shake. Adulterated milk will form a dense lather, while pure milk creates only a thin layer.
3. Milk Products: Starch Milk, khoya, paneer, boil 2-3 ml with water, cool, and then add iodine. It turns blue if starch is present.
4. Starches in Ghee/Butter: Add some drops of iodine in ghee or butter. If it turns blue, then it is adulterated with starch.
5. Chalk in Sugar or Jaggery: 10g of the sample is dissolved in water. Chalk adulterants settle at the bottom.
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6. Artificial Colour in Sweets: Bright colour shows the presence of synthetic color. Taste and smell the sweets before purchase and test for starch by applying iodine. The blue purple shade shows that it is adulterated.
7. Testing Silver Foil for purity: Heat silver foil over a spoon. The pure silver forms glistening balls whereas an adulterated one having aluminium reduces to grayish ash.
These tests give the consumer the scope of judging the food very rapidly, and so consumers may enjoy a safe festival.