Analysis of Market Paneer Samples Sold in Amreli District for Presence of Adulterants

Abstract

Adulteration in food is one of the oldest punishable offence; perhaps it is as parallel as the history of human civilization. Apart from others food products milk and dairy products are always the prime target of adulteration throughout the world. India is the world largest milk producing country and adulteration is one of the key hurdles uses to face by Indian dairy industry. Apart from milk other popular dairy products like paneer are always a prime target of adulteration. Therefore, a study was undertaken on the incidence of adulterants, present in the paneer samples sold by un-organized dairies and vendors in and around Amreli district of Gujarat. From the study it was observed that the presence of adulterants such as starch followed by vegetable oils are the adulterants in paneer samples. As eighty samples collected from market; 16, 3 and 1 samples were found to be adulterated with starch, urea and salts, respectively.  From this study it was also revealed that Kirschner value analysis was fruitful to ascertain the quality of fat in paneer, but it needs more research indeed.