Adulterant

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An adulterant is caused by the act of adulteration, a practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. Typical substances that are adulterated include but are not limited to food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fuel, or other chemicals, that compromise the safety or effectiveness of the said substance.

Contents

Definition

Adulteration is the a practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. [1] The secretly added substance will not normally be present in any specification or declared substances due to accident or negligence rather than intent, and also for the introduction of unwanted substances after the product has been made. Adulteration, therefore, implies that the adulterant was introduced deliberately in the initial manufacturing process, or sometimes that it was present in the raw materials and should have been removed, but was not.[ citation needed ]

An adulterant is distinct from, for example, permitted food preservatives. There can be a fine line between adulterant and additive; chicory may be added to coffee to reduce the cost or achieve a desired flavor—this is adulteration if not declared, but may be stated on the label. Chalk was often added to bread flour; this reduces the cost and increases whiteness, but the calcium confers health benefits, and in modern bread, a little chalk may be included as an additive for this reason.[ citation needed ]

In wartime, adulterants have been added to make foodstuffs "go further" and prevent shortages. The German word ersatz is widely recognised for such practices during World War II. Such adulteration was sometimes deliberately hidden from the population to prevent loss of morale and propaganda reasons. Some goods considered luxurious in the Soviet Bloc such as coffee were adulterated[ how? ] to make them affordable to the general population.[ citation needed ]

In food and beverages

"How the microscope reveals adulteration", microscope slide comparing rice starch (left) and arrowroot (right) and a mixture of the two (center), c. 1909 How the microscope reveals adulteration b10154140 027 tif ks65hd45w.tiff
"How the microscope reveals adulteration", microscope slide comparing rice starch (left) and arrowroot (right) and a mixture of the two (center), c.1909

Past and present examples of adulterated food, some dangerous, include:

History

Historically, the use of adulterants has been common; sometimes dangerous substances have been used. In the United Kingdom up to the Victorian era, adulterants were common; for example, cheeses were sometimes colored with lead. Similar adulteration issues were seen in industries in the United States, during the 19th century. There is a dispute over whether these practices declined primarily due to government regulation or to increased public awareness and concern over the practices.[ citation needed ]

In the early 21st century, cases of dangerous adulteration occurred in the People's Republic of China. [5] [6]

In some African countries, it is not uncommon for thieves to break electric transformers to steal transformer oil, which is then sold to the operators of roadside food stalls to be used for deep frying. When used for frying, it is reported that transformer oil lasts much longer than regular cooking oil. The downside of this misuse of the transformer oil is the threat to the health of the consumers, due to the presence of PCBs. [7]

Adulterant use was first investigated in 1820 by the German chemist Frederick Accum, who identified many toxic metal colorings in food and drink. His work antagonized food suppliers, and he was ultimately discredited by a scandal over his alleged mutilation of books in the Royal Institution library. The physician Arthur Hill Hassall conducted extensive studies in the early 1850s, which were published in The Lancet and led to the 1860 Food Adulteration Act and other legislation. [8] John Postgate led a further campaign, leading to another Act of 1875, which forms the basis of the modern legislation and a system of public analysts who test for adulteration.[ citation needed ]

At the turn of the 20th century, industrialization in the United States led to a rise in adulteration, which inspired some protest. Accounts of adulteration led the New York Evening Post to parody:

Mary had a little lamb,
And when she saw it sicken,
She shipped it off to Packingtown,
And now it's labeled chicken. [9]

However, even in the 18th century, people complained about adulteration in food:

"The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum and bone ashes, insipid to the taste and destructive to the constitution. The good people are not ignorant of this adulteration; but they prefer it to wholesome bread, because it is whiter than the meal of corn [wheat]. Thus they sacrifice their taste and their health. . . to a most absurd gratification of a misjudged eye; and the miller or the baker is obliged to poison them and their families, in order to live by his profession." – Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) [10]

Incidents

See also

Related Research Articles

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In China, the adulteration and contamination of several food and feed ingredients with inexpensive melamine and other compounds, such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide, are common practice. These adulterants can be used to inflate the apparent protein content of products, so that inexpensive ingredients can pass for more expensive, concentrated proteins. Melamine by itself has not been thought to be very toxic to animals or humans except possibly in very high concentrations, but the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid has been implicated in kidney failure. Reports that cyanuric acid may be an independently and potentially widely used adulterant in China have heightened concerns for both animal and human health.

In 2007, a series of product recalls and import bans were imposed by the product safety institutions of the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand against products manufactured in and exported from the mainland of the People's Republic of China (PRC) because of numerous alleged consumer safety issues. The many product recalls within the year led Consumer Reports and other observers to dub 2007 "The Year of the Recall.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 Chinese milk scandal</span> Food safety crisis

The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a significant food safety incident in China. The scandal involved Sanlu Group's milk and infant formula along with other food materials and components being adulterated with the chemical melamine, which resulted in kidney stones and other kidney damage in infants. The chemical was used to increase the nitrogen content of diluted milk, giving it the appearance of higher protein content in order to pass quality control testing. 300,000 affected children were identified, among which 54,000 were hospitalized, according to the latest report in January 2009. The deaths of six babies were officially concluded to be related to the contaminated milk.

Adulteration is a legal offense and when the food fails to meet the legal standards set by the government, it is said to have been Adulterated Food. One form of adulteration is the addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which results in the loss of the actual quality of the food item. These substances may be either available food items or non-food items. Among meat and meat products some of the items used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed. In the case of seafood, adulteration may refer to species substitution (mislabeling), which replaces the species identified on the product label with another species, or undisclosed processing methods, in which treatments such as additives, excessive glazing, or short-weighting are not disclosed to the consumer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food safety incidents in China</span>

Food safety incidents in China have received increased international media scrutiny following the reform and opening of the country, and its joining the World Trade Organization. Urban areas have become more aware of food safety as their incomes rise. Food safety agencies in China have overlapping duties. The 2008 Chinese milk scandal and COVID-19 pandemic received the most attention among food safety incidents.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swill milk scandal</span> Adulterated food scandal in the 1850s

The swill milk scandal was a major adulterated food scandal in the state of New York in the 1850s. The New York Times reported an estimate that in one year 8,000 infants died from swill milk.

References

  1. "Difference Between Adulteration and Contamination". Compare the Difference Between Similar Terms. 16 July 2014.
  2. The Times, Police, 5 February 1894; pg. 14
  3. Burros, Marian (9 August 2006). "The Customer Wants a Juicy Steak? Just Add Water". The New York Times.
  4. Weise, Elizabeth (24 April 2007). "Food tests promise tough task for FDA". USA Today . Retrieved 29 April 2007.
  5. Wu, Yong-Ning; Zhao, Yun-Feng; Li, Jin-Guang; Melamine Analysis Group (2009). "A Survey on Occurrence of Melamine and Its Analogues in Tainted Infant Formula in China". Biomedical and Environmental Sciences. 22 (2): 95–99. Bibcode:2009BioES..22...95W. doi: 10.1016/S0895-3988(09)60028-3 . PMID   19618684.
  6. Li, Xiaoman; Zang, Mingwu; Li, Dan; Zhang, Kaihua; Zhang, Zheqi; Wang, Shouwei (2023). "Meat food fraud risk in Chinese markets 2012–2021". npj Science of Food. 7 (12): 12. doi: 10.1038/s41538-023-00189-z . PMC   10070328 . PMID   37012259.
  7. Thieves fry Kenya's power grid for fast food, Al Jazeera, 28 December 2014
  8. Coley, Noel (1 March 2005). "The fight against food adulteration". Education in Chemistry . Vol. 42, no. 2. Royal Society of Chemistry. pp. 46–49. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  9. Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 59
  10. "Weston A.Price: Against the Grain, Section Bread to Feed the Masses". Archived from the original on 20 August 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  11. "Juiceless baby juice leads to full-length justice|FDA Consumer". Archived from the original on 10 December 2007.
  12. "Conagra Set to Settle Criminal Charges It Increased Weight and Value of Grain". The New York Times. Bloomberg News. 20 March 1997.
  13. Sinha, Kounteya (10 January 2012). "70% of milk in Delhi, country is adulterated". The Times of India. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  14. Piper, Kelsey (20 September 2023). "Lead poisoning kills millions annually. One country is showing the way forward". Vox.

Further reading