Are you consuming Unadulterated Milk ? Get your answer here.

Hi everyone,

I am a veterinarian and working in an organised Dairy farm. I've got many questions regarding the detection of clean and unadulterated milk at home itself.

Let me define what actually the adulterated milk is?

Adulteration of milk is adding exogenous substances which is not present in the milk naturally that deteriorates the consuming quality of milk.

These exogenous substances are called Adulterants and even may be hazardous if present in milk. For example- Water, urea, starch, detergents, formalin, Vanaspati, Coal tar, hydrogen peroxide etc.

One may ask why these adulterants are mixed with clean milk.  The answer is to increase keeping quality and self life of milk, make milk cheaper by making synthetic milk which is highly dangerous to the consumer.

Here, i enclose some method for detecting adulterated milk at home-

• Water- Water present in milk can be detected by putting a drop of milk sample on a smooth slanting surface. The Pure milk flows slowly with a mark of trail leaving behind it. However, an adulterated milk flows fast without leaving trail marks.

• Urea- Urea is added in milk to increase nitrogen content in milk. Urea can be detected by taking a sample of milk and added with half teaspoon of soya-bean powder. Mix the content thoroughly by shaking tubes. After 5 minutes, dip a red litmus paper to it for 30 seconds. A change in colour from red to blue indicate the presence of urea in milk.
• Detergents- Detergents are added to increase froth forming ability of milk. This can be detected by taking 5-10 ml. of milk and added with the equal amount of water. The Appearance of lather indicates the presence of detergents.

• Starch- Starch is added to increase sugars in milk. It can be detected by adding a few drops of iodine in 5 ml. of milk sample. The Appearance of the blue colour shows the presence of starch in milk.

• Synthetic Milk-  Synthetic milk has bitter after taste, gives a soapy feeling on rubbing between the fingers and turns  yellowish on heating.

I hope, you like the content. Please let me know if you want to know the laboratory tests for detection of adulteration of milk through comment section below.

Thankyou.