Food Adulteration

                                       Food Adulteration

Food adulteration is the process in which the quality of food is lowered either by the addition of inferior quality material or by extraction of valuable ingredient. Food adulteration has become a new problem in the country. People do not bother what they are having as foods even they know that it may cause them much harm. Some adulterants enter via agricultural steps, as they are not cleaned well. These are visible adulterants like stones, leaves, soil, sand and dust to name a few. The consumer can clean them and this makes it less harmful. Other adulterants that are intentionally added are invisible or they are made invisible by astutely camouflaging with the color or texture. They are generally harmful for the health and most of them lead to serious health problems like cancer. The major reason for food adulteration is greediness of some dishonest businessman. They are cruel and devoid of conscience. They don’t think how much harm they are doing to the consumers. They adulterate food without the least hesitation or torment of conscience.  They want to increase the profit margin on the expense of the health of the public or consumer. Bakery and confectionery products are also prepared by using toxic substances and thus they get adulterated. Junk food contains harmful chemicals. Even fruits, milk and beverages are also adulterated. In fact, all kinds of foods and food articles are adulterated. Actually, the range of adulteration activities is many. The hotels and restaurants are also serving these poisonous and unhealthy menus. Dead chicken in hotels and restaurants may contain germs of various diseases and many produce infections. Regular intake of an adulterated food can lead to many health problems. Uses of formalin creates various liver damaging diseases like liver cirrhosis. Urea and other nitrogenous products cause different types of kidney disease especially in children. Oleomargarine that is used in butter contains low density lipo-protein that causes atherosclerosis and heart disease. Artificial colorants contain a lot of toxic like copper, zinc, indigo which are carcinogenic and may produce cancer.  From curable to incurable disorders and diseases can ruin one’s lifestyle and life as well. Recently, the government and general public have been much worried about this issue. Public awareness should be created so that they become careful about buying foods and food articles. Besides, the criminals have to be identified and punished. The relevant departments of the government should remain ever vigilant against food adulteration and gear up their activities. They must strictly monitor the market regularly and must give exemplary punishment to the criminals so as to prevent this notorious social crime.  Food adulteration increases the burden of health in the society. So it must be removed from the society.