Below is the List of Food Adulterants and their effects on our health:
| Sr. No | Adulterants | Foods Commonly Used | Diseases or Health Effects |
| Adulterants in Food | |||
| 1. | Argemone Seeds Argemone Oil | Mustard Seeds Edible Oils and Fats | Epidemic Dropsy Glaucoma Cardiac arrest |
| 2. | Artificially coloured foreign seeds | As a substitute for cumin seed, Poppy seed, black pepper | Injurious to health |
| 3. | Foreign leaves or exhausted tea leaves, saw dust artificially coloured | Tea | Injurious to health, cancer |
| 4. | TCP | Oils | Paralysis |
| 5. | Rancid Oil | Oils | Destroys Vitamin A and E |
| 6. | Sand, marble chips, stones, filth | Food grains, pulses etc. | Damage digestive tract |
| 7. | Lathyrus Sativus | Khesari dal alone or mixed in other pulses | Lathyrism (crippling spastic paraplegia) |
| Chemical Contamination | |||
| 8. | Mineral Oil (white oil, petroleum fractions) | Edible oils and fats, Black pepper | Cancer |
| 9. | Leadchromate | Turmeric whole and powdered, mixed spices | Anemia, abortion, paralysis, brain damage |
| 10. | Methanol | Alcoholic liquors | Blurred vision, blindness, death |
| 11. | Arsenic | Fruits such as apples, sprayed over with lead arsenate | Dizziness, chills, cramps, paralysis,, death |
| 12. | Barium | Foods contaminated by rat poisons (Bariumcarbonate) | Violent peristalisis, arterial hypertension, muscular twitching, convulsions, cardiac disturbances |
| 13. | Cadmium | Fruits juices, soft drinks etc. in contact with cadmium plated vessels or equipment. Cadmium contaminated water and shell – fish. | ‘Itai – itai (ouch – ouch) disease, increased salivation, acute gastritis, liver and kidney damage, prostate cancer |
| 14. | Cobalt | Water, Liquors | Cardiac insufficiency and mycocardial failure |
| 15. | Lead | Water, natural and processed food | Lead poisoning (foot – drop, insomnia, anemia, constipation, mental retardation, brain damage) |
| 16. | Copper | Food | Vomiting, diarrhoea |
| 17. | Tin | Food | Colic, vomiting |
| 18. | Zinc | Food | Colic, vomiting |
| 19. | Mercury | Mercury fungicide treated seeds grains or mercury contaminated fish | Brain damage, paralysis, death |
| NOTE | Safe limits have been prescribed for above metals in different food. continuous use of food contaminated with these metals | ||
| 20. | Bacillus cereus | Cereal products, custards, puddings, sauces | Food infection (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea) |
| 21. | Salmonella spp. | Meat and meat products, raw vegetables, salads, shell – fish, eggs and egg products, warmed up leftovers | Salmonellosis (food infection usually with fever and chills) |
| 22. | Shigella sonnei | Milk, potato, beans, poultry, tuna, shrimp, moist mixed foods | Shigellosis ( bacillary dysentery) |
| 23. | Staphylococcus aureus Entero – toxins – A, B, C, D or E | Dairy products, baked foods especially custard or cream – filled foods, meat and meat products, low acid frozen foods, salads, cream sauces etc. | Increased salivation, vomiting, abdominal cramp, diarrhoea, severe thirst, cold sweats, prostration |
| 24. | Clostridium botulinus toxins A,B, E or F | Defectively canned low or medium – acid foods, meats, sausages, smoked vacuum – packed fish, fermented food etc. | Botulism (double vision, muscular paralysis, death due to respiratory failure)
|
| 25. | Clostridium perfringens (Welchii) type A | Milk improperly processed or canned meats, fish and gravy stocks | Nausea, abdominal pains, diarrhoea, gas formation |
| 26. | Diethyl stilbestrol (additive in animal) | Meat | Sterlites, fibroid tumors etc. |
| 27. | 3, 4 Benzopyrene | Skoked food | Cancer |
| 28. | Excessive solvent residue | Solvent extracted oil, oil cake etc. | Carcinogenic effect |
| 29. | Non – food grade or contaminated packing material | Food | Blood clot, angiosarcoma, cancer etc. |
| 30. | Non – permitted colour or permitted food colour beyond safe limit | Coloured food | Mental retardation, cancer and other toxic effect. |
| 31. | BHA and BHT beyond safe limit | Oils and fats | Allergy, liver damage, increase in serum chloresterol etc. |
| 32. | Monosodium glutamate (flour) (beyond safe limit) | Chinese food, meat and meat products | Brain damage, mental retardation in infants |
| 33. | Coumarin and dihydro coumarin | Flavoured food | Blood anticoagulant |
| 34. | Food flavours beyond safe limit | Flavoured food | Chances of liver cancer |
| 35. | Brominated vegetable oils | Cold drinks | Anemia, enlargement of heart |
| 36. | Sulphur dioxide and sulphite beyond safe limit | In variety of food as preservative | Acute irritation of the gastro – intestinal tracts etc. |
| 37. | Artificial sweeteners beyond safe limit | Sweet foods | Chances of cancer |
| Fungal Contamination | |||
| 38. | Ergot alkaloids from Claviceps purpurea Toxic alkaloids, ergotamine, ergotoxin and ergometrine groups | Ergot – infested bajra, rye meal or bread | Ergotism (St. Anthony’s fire burning sensation in extremities, itching of skin, peripheral gangrene) |
| 39. | Alfatoxins | Aspergillus flavus – contaminated foods such as groundnuts, cottonseed etc. | Liver damage and cancer |
| 40. | Toxins from Fusarium sporotrichiella | Moist grains | Urov disease (kaschin – Beck disease) |
| 41. | Toxins from Fusarium sporotrichioides | Grains (millet, wheat, oats, rye etc.) | Alimentary toxic aleukia (ATA) (epidemic panmyelotoxicosis) |
| 42. | Toxins from Penicillium inslandicum Penicillium citreovirede Fusarium, Rhizopus, Aspergillus | Yellow Rice | Toxic mouldy rice disease |
| 43. | Sterigmatocystin from Aspergillus versicolour Aspergillus nidulans and bipolaris | Foodgrains | Hepatitis |
| 44. | Ascaris lumbricoides | Any raw food or water contaminated by human faeces containing eggs of the parasite | Ascariasis |
| 45. | Entamoeba histolytica Viral | Raw vegetables and fruits | Amoebic dysentery |
| 46. | Virus of infectious Hepatitis (A) | Shell – fish, milk, unheated foods contaminated with faeces, urine and blood of infected human | Infectious hepatitis |
| 47. | Machupo virus | Foods contaminated with rodents urine, such as ccereals | Bolivian haemorrhagic fever |
| Natural Contamination | |||
| 48. | Fluoride | Drinking water, sea foods, tea etc. | Excess fluoride causes fluorosis (mottling of teeth, skeletal and neurological disorders) |
| 49. | Oxalic acid | Spinach, amaranth etc. | Renal calculi, cramps, failure of blood to clot |
| 50. | Gossypol | Cottonseed flour and cake | Cancer |
| 51. | Polycyclic aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) | Smoked fish, meat, mineral oil – contaminated water, oils, fats and fish, especially shell – fish | Cancer |
| 52. | Cyanogenetic compounds | Bitter almonds, apple seeds, cassava, some beans etc. | Gastro – intestinal disturbances |
| 53. | Phalloidine (alkaloid) | Toxic mushrooms | Mushroom poisoning (Hypoglycemia, convulsions, profuse watery stools, severe necrosis of liver leading to hepatic failure and death) |
| 54. | Solanine | Potatoes | Solanine poisoning (vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea) |
| 55. | Nitrate and nitrites | Drinking water, spinach, rhubarb, asparagus, etc. and meat products | Methaemoglobinaemia especially in infants, cancer and tumours in the liver, kidney, trachea oesophagus and lungs. The liver is the initial site but afterwards tumours appear in other organs. |
| 56. | Asbestos (may be presentin talc, Kaolin etc. and in processed foods) | Polished rice, pulses, processed foods containing anti – caking agents etc. | Absorption in particulate form by the body may produce cancer |
| 57. | Pesticide residues (beyond safe limit) | All types of food | Acute or chronic poisoning with damage to nerves and vital organs like liver kidney etc. |
| 58. | Antibiotic beyond safe limits | Meats from antibiotic – fed animals | Multiple drug resistance hardening of arteries, heart disease. |
Sources : http://www.agmarknet.nic.in/adulterants.htm
Read here about food adulteration
