Food Items Commonly Found in Every Households that are Affected by Food Adulteration: A Review

Food adulteration is the act of deceiving the consumers so as to make a financial profit. Adding these adulterants change the properties of the food items by altering the colour, flavour, fragrance, appearance, texture and other properties of food products which make them appealing to consumers. Even food items like milk, dairy products, food grains, cereals, pulses fruits, vegetables, etc. are not free from adulteration. Adulteration can either be added intentionally or unintentionally, though more often, adulteration is done intentionally to make a financial benefit. To protect the consumers from these harmful adulterants, the FSSAI has placed many acts, regulations and rules to monitor and stop the production and distribution of these substances. The rate of food adulteration is increasing rapidly in India, to feed its 1.44 billion population, and across the globe. Recent global events, like the COVID-19 pandemic; rising inflation; the crisis in Sri Lanka due to bankruptcy since 2022, the ongoing Sudan conflict, the Israeli war with Palestine and the Russia-Ukraine war are some of the events that has not only has increased the demand for food supplies but has also affected the production, transport and distribution of food across the world. In this article, various commonly found food products are identified and they are reviewed with the help of various published literatures to see if the food products actually do contain adulterants.