Detection of Melamine in Food Samples

Food is the basic necessity of life. For consumers around the globe, access to

secure and nourishing food is afundamental requirement for sustaining their

completehealth and welfare. Consequently, food manufacturers make significant

investments to ensure the safety of their food products and to diminish the risks to

consumers against exposure to contaminatedor unsafe food produce. Producer’ sefforts

to furnish safe food could cover and influence each aspect of the complete procurement

and manufacturing supply chain. The Food borne contaminant/ adulterant problems are

major concern to public health and contribute significantly to the outlay of medical

management. Synonyms such as admixture and substitution assist in describing the

word adulteration. Food adulteration could be described as diminishing the quality of

food by deliberate or unintended substitution of food with certain poorer extraneous

fragments or by elimination of certain value-added food alternates from the key food

item. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has described ＂adulterant＂

as any substance that is or could be employed for manufacture of the food unsafe or

sub-standard or miss-branded or comprising extraneous substance. According to Federal

Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), the primary food safety law administered by

the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), food could be stated adulterated if:

a) A material is added which is harmful to health.

b) Cheaper or lower quality item added to food.

c) Any valuable ingredient is isolated from the main food commodity.

d) Quality of food is inferior tothe specifications.

e) Any constituent has been added to raise bulk or weight.

f) To make it appear more valuable.