Adulteration of milk and Detection | An Article | By Umm-e-Habiba

 Adulteration of milk and detection

Authors

●     Baruke Abdulabad (2019-dvmn-002), UVAS

●     Umm-e-Habiba Siddique (2019-dvmn-005), UVAS

●     Kainat naseer(2019-dvmn-006), UVAS

●     Zainab zulfiqar(2019-dvmn-22), UVAS

●     Aleeha naveed(2019-dvmn-026), UVAS

Milk adulteration test

Introduction

From the earliest times and till now, milk is the food which can be considered as the ideal food. Milk is having all the beneficial nutrients that are required for the appropriate growth of adults and infants. It is an unfortunate fact that milk is being adulterated throughout the world which is continuously reducing the nutrients and benefits of milk. The term adulteration describes the introduction of any harmful and other entities which can make milk unsafe and misbranded. Different types of adulterants can be added in milk such as starch, soap, table sugar and formalin etc. fortunately, there are many test to judge the quality of milk that either it is adulterated or not. Qualitative detection of adulteration is easy to do but the quantitative test to judge milk adulteration is somewhat more complex.

Qualitative detection of milk adulterants

These tests are simple and easy to perform. These tests include the simple color based techniques. The major fact about these techniques is that these are backwards and valid for limited concentration at a time. These techniques are not yet sufficiently précised. Qualitative detection; however, are advantageous because these are very simple and easy to perform. In adulteration, different chemicals are added to improve the taste of milk but here are certain chemical which are very lethal and hazardous for life. These chemical can lead to fatal death of individuals.

Quantitative test for adulteration detection

There are different was to identify the adulteration of milk quantitatively. Some of them are mentioned below

Adulteration with foreign protein

Some of the consumers who have intolerance to lactose are given the milk with some supplements such as soy, rice and other almond proteins. The interesting fact is that the production cost of these supplements is actually 70% lower than the actual cost of milk. Some people take advantage of this fact and intentionally add these supplements in milk to lower the total cost of milk and to increase the profits.

Detection of these kinds of proteins in milk are polarimetric techniques, Iso electric precipitation, SDS-PAGE, and HPLC method. NIR (Near Infra Red) spectroscopy is now being used for the detection of powder present in milk. Adulteration of pasteurized milk can be done by soya, pea and wheat proteins. Some proteins present in milk which are having polyclonal antibodies are now being detected by ELISA test.

Adulterated milk with different sources

The easiest and common way of milk adulteration is mixing the milk of different species to increase the profits of sellers. This kind of adulteration can be detected with certain tests. The fact of this detection is that the quantitative detection of this kind of adulteration is more complex because it contains the generic and non generic polymorphism. ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy) is used for the detection of milk which is being adulterated by the milk of different geographical origins.  Milk adulteration in which cow milk is adulterated with caprine milk is being tested by HPLC/ESI-MS (High Performance Liquid Chromatography/Electrospray Ionization- Mass Spectroscopy).

Milk adulteration with urea

Urea is a natural content of milk but it is the major content of non-protein nitrogen present in milk. There are two ways in which milk can be adulterated with urea. These methods are described below

The addition of unspecified synthetic milk can be added to natural milk. This adulteration can be detected by the use of infrared Raman spectroscopy technique. GC/IDMS is the other test of testing the presence of urea in milk which is quantitative detection.

Conclusion

The milk sellers are basically focusing on the profits and financial gain things. They have nothing to do with the health of milk consumers. They are intentionally adding different elements on natural milk to lower the advantageous nutrients of milk. These supplements and chemicals can lead to serious diseases and lead to fatal diseases in individual, awareness and information is needed to get rid of this problem. There should be proper legislation made for this act that if someone will find doing milk adulteration, he will face the consequences. This awareness will be beneficial in this case.