Opinion The menace of food adulteration — and how to tackle it

In the 1990s, it was common to hear stories about adulterated milk. In 2025, the adulteration of food, including milk, remains a problem. For instance, the National Survey on Milk Adulteration in 2011 revealed that 70 per cent of the milk samples that were tested in India did not meet the standards of food safety. Water is the main adulterant in milk. Other adulterants include salt, detergents and glucose.

In recent times, there have been alarming reports on food adulteration in several other items of daily consumption like paneer, watermelon, spices, etc. News reports from different parts of the country, like Delhi, Mumbai, and Noida, have revealed that the market is flooded with “fake paneer”. The most common adulterants include starch, detergents, synthetic milk, acetic acid, etc. Eating adulterated food items can lead to severe health consequences like food poisoning, sometimes even death.

The prevalence of adulterated food should set alarm bells ringing in a country that is grappling with both communicable and non-communicable health issues. India is often known as the diabetes capital of the world, with around 77 million people above 18 suffering from this non-communicable disease. A recent study by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai, has attributed this to the kind of food Indians eat. The higher number of diabetics is closely connected to the fried and ultra-processed foods that are consumed. The use of low-quality oil is also a contributing factor. Edible oil is also one of the most adulterated food items in the country. Adulterants such as rice bran oil, argemone oil and artificial allyl isothiocyanate are added to mustard oil.

The case of adulteration in spices is even more striking. In April 2024, Hong Kong suspended the sale of certain MDH and Everest spice blends because of the presence of large amounts of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing pesticide. It is not an exaggeration to state that Indian soft power, especially its culinary capital, is synonymous with its spices. Made-in-India spices, considered to be one of the major exports, are widely sold worldwide. Apart from health impacts, the country’s international reputation suffers when these cases come up. The European Union has already raised concerns about the presence of ethylene oxide in chilli peppers and peppercorns from India. It even banned 400 items for heavy contamination between 2019 and 2024.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been conducting raids and sample tests and cancelling the manufacturing licences of many manufacturers. People have also been directed to be wary of purchasing adulterated products, check carefully and preferably eat items like paneer at home. But such measures are not enough. By saying that citizens must be aware and eat at home, the obligation to ensure food is safe and healthy is shifted from the state to the individual. This is particularly difficult to achieve in a country that still has a large population of poor and uneducated people. The problem calls for better farming, processing and packaging practices. Producers at every level need better training and knowledge about safe food practices. The FSSAI must ensure stricter implementation across India, as many states do not have the infrastructure to do so. There is also a need to look at the permissible levels of pesticides in food and to rethink food quality and its relationship with health. We must develop the concept of food literacy to fight nutritional and health hazards.

The writer teaches Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati