An overview of food adulteration: Concept, sources, impact, challenges and detection

Abstract

Food is any substance composed of carbohydrates, water, fats and proteins, which can be eaten or drunk by humans or animals for nutrition or very important aspect for life. Food products are often a target of adulteration while supply chains usually deal with perishable products that could be harmful to consumers if they are not managed properly. Economic adulteration is a long term problem affecting the food industry. Adulteration in food has been a concern since the beginning of civilization, as it not only decreases the quality of food products but also results in a number of ill effects on health. Food adulteration involves the infusion of useless, harmful, unnecessary substances to food which decreases the quality of food. The problems of adulteration makes the food items used in our daily life unsafe and unhygienic for use due to poor handling. Adulteration in food items can cause tremendous affect on health without our knowledge. If we tend to actively participate in these changes then we can bring about a healthy and non venturous future for the upcoming generations.

Effects of Azo Dye Adulterated Palm Oil on the Expression of Inflammatory, Functional, Antioxidant Markers and Body Weights in Albino Rats

“…Food fraud is currently a persistent global problem with advancing technology and no food commodity is left out as in the case of palm oil [2]. Food Adulteration can be defined as a process of lowering the quality of food by intentional or unintentional substitution of food with some inferior foreign particle or by removal of some value added food substitute from main food item [3]. Toxicity may however relate to the routes of exposure, dose and personal characteristics such as age and health conditions may affect the individual's susceptibility [4].…”

Unscrambling the Provenance of Eggs by Combining Chemometrics and Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy

“…The term food fraud is associated with the selling of a cheap food ingredient or product at the price of an expensive one [2,[5][6][7]. Food fraud has been a common challenge since ancient times due to reasons of profitability, and to mask the unusual appearance or taste of perishable foods [2,[5][6][7].…”

“…The term food fraud is associated with the selling of a cheap food ingredient or product at the price of an expensive one [2,[5][6][7]. Food fraud has been a common challenge since ancient times due to reasons of profitability, and to mask the unusual appearance or taste of perishable foods [2,[5][6][7]. In recent decades, numerous fraudulent practices have been identified, and monitoring using modern analytical techniques and instrumentation has been developed [2,[5][6][7]].…”

“…Food fraud has been a common challenge since ancient times due to reasons of profitability, and to mask the unusual appearance or taste of perishable foods [2,[5][6][7]. In recent decades, numerous fraudulent practices have been identified, and monitoring using modern analytical techniques and instrumentation has been developed [2,[5][6][7]]. Yet, the growth in global food supply chains, and the incidence and effects of food fraud, have increased in recent years in several countries [2,6,7].…”

Feasibility of a chromameter and chemometric techniques to discriminate pure and mixed organic and conventional red pepper powders: A pilot study

“…Most of the food adulteration studies have concentrated on the addition of a food ingredient or colorant into another food product (Banti, 2020; Choudhary et al., 2020; Fikselova et al., 2020). Studies on mixing similar type of conventionally produced plant‐based products into organic products have been very limited.…”