Unsafe to Eat: India’s Chronic Food Adulteration Problem

Every year, in the lead-up to the annual festive season of Navratri, followed by Diwali, headlines fixate on the plummeting air quality index. Yet, they are invariably accompanied by reports that portend something far more serious: food adulteration and contamination.

In September, as Navratri began, hundreds of people were hospitalised after consuming adulterated flour. Nearly 400 residents across north and north-west Delhi were admitted to Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital. The following month, Delhi Police seized nearly 6,800 units of adulterated ghee and sweets during six separate raids. Furthermore, approximately 2,000 kilograms of spurious sweets were found in a raid carried out in Raghubir Nagar.

This malaise is not confined to Delhi but plagues several northern States. In Punjab’s Faridkot, the Health and Police Departments confiscated 1,800 kg of suspected adulterated sweets. Likewise, in Lucknow, the Food Safety and Drug Administration seized and incinerated nearly 1,700 kg of tainted food items. In Noida and Ghaziabad, over 1,100 kg of contaminated food products were disposed of following inspections.

However, food adulteration is not a seasonal aberration tied to festive demand in the country but a persistent problem. The recurring raids, seizures, and public health scares merely scratch the surface of a deep-seated crisis.

Entrenched crisis

According to Ashim Sanyal, Chief Operating Officer of Voluntary Organisation in Interest of Consumer Education (VOICE), food adulteration contributes to a majority of chronic diseases. Speaking to Frontline, he said: “When we talk about diseases, the most common are stomach-related ailments, followed by serious conditions affecting the heart and kidneys. These organs are among the first to be impacted when adulterated food is consumed. Essentially, the entire food chain within the body—from the mouth to the stomach, pancreas, and kidneys—comes under strain.”

He added: “Adulteration acts as a form of slow poisoning. It doesn’t trigger an immediate reaction but gradually debilitates the body over time. That’s why you rarely come across reports of hundreds being hospitalised due to adulteration—it doesn’t manifest as an instant crisis. But that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist; it’s simply insidious rather than abrupt.”

Sanyal also pointed out: “Immediate poisoning occurs when food is contaminated, and contamination is fundamentally different from adulteration.”

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He added that it is often exceedingly difficult even for doctors to judge whether common symptoms such as nausea, stomach ache, and diarrhoea stem from food adulteration or contamination.

“Unless the reaction is immediate and the patient receives medical attention right away, doctors rarely conduct tests specifically for adulteration. We know what adulterants exist, and theoretically, it’s easy to test for them—but that’s not how it works in practice. This is why the actual magnitude of adulteration is extremely difficult to quantify. Only when someone becomes critically ill and is hospitalised does the issue come to light.”

There are incidents where school children fall sick after midday meals or guests at mass weddings suffer food poisoning, and these are isolated outbreaks. “But regular consumers like us, who unknowingly consume adulterated products, don’t feel the impact immediately. Minor symptoms like nausea, stomach pain, or diarrhoea are usually self-medicated and dismissed. As a result, the scale, intensity, and pervasiveness of adulteration in the food supply remain largely unknown,” Sanyal said.

Exports under scanner

According to him, spices are commonly adulterated throughout the year, not just during the festive season. “And it has now been established not only by India but also by Singapore and several European Union (EU) nations that rejected and returned consignments of Indian spices. The US was the latest to do so.”

Last year, a report released by Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety, its official food regulatory body, said that three spice products from India contained traces of ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen. Between 2019 and 2024, the EU flagged over 400 Indian products for containing lethal contaminants, reporting that these spices harboured hazardous concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium.

In response to growing concerns over potential public health risks, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) asserted that adequate measures had been instituted to ensure the safety of food products in the country, and that action would be initiated against non-compliant food business operators. However, the authority acknowledged that food products destined for export were beyond its jurisdiction. Queries sent to FSSAI by Frontline did not elicit a response.

FSSAI’s strengths and weaknesses

The FSSAI is the principal nodal agency entrusted with overseeing food safety and standards in the country. Constituted under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, it functions as the central authority for all matters pertaining to food regulation and safety. The agency also coordinates with State-level food safety authorities to ensure uniform enforcement across the country.

Sanyal said that, in principle, the FSSAI is structurally robust, but the real challenge lies in implementation and enforcement of rules. “Implementation and enforcement are both State subjects. This means some States excel in carrying out these functions, while others struggle, depending on the number of food safety officers they have and the volume of samples they collect. Authorities usually become active during the festive season, but even then, the quantity of samples collected is negligible. It appears substantial on paper but, in reality, represents only a fraction of the total adulteration.”

According to him, the shift from the previous Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA) to the Food Safety and Standards Act was a pivotal transformation since the FSSAI issues monetary penalties, whereas the PFA mandated imprisonment as well.

Consumer activists often argue that monetary penalties are often insufficient, as most operators have already amassed profits far exceeding the fines imposed on them. Sanyal said that one of the main impediments to effective regulation and enforcement was the acute shortage of manpower and financial resources. “Both are in short supply. The shortage of personnel and limited financial capacity undermine the ability to ensure effective compliance and oversight.”

Deceptive marketing

Nemthianngai Guite, Associate Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that the issue extends far beyond regulation and is deeply compounded by the deceptive marketing of many products.

Speaking to Frontline, Guite said: “So-called “health foods” or supplements for children contain high levels of sugar. Yet they are marketed in a way that convinces the general public they are the best option for children. This is where multiple agencies need to step in and scrutinise the process.”

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She added: “It’s not just about the regulatory framework, which operates at a macro level. In a country like India, the regulatory framework is weak and often compromised, and much of the adulteration stems directly from corruption. Food labelling norms are routinely circumvented, and markets are manipulated to project misleading claims. The consequences are evident in the surge of chronic diseases, ranging from cancer and cardiovascular disorders to liver and kidney ailments, largely because the food we consume today is riddled with adulterants.”

According to her, for any institution or agency to be truly effective, there must be greater awareness among the general population. “A vast section of the population is often misled by deceptive labels, particularly in urban areas. In contrast, rural communities, which have limited access to processed and fast food, tend to have better health outcomes in terms of chronic diseases. You see fewer cases of cardiovascular ailments, cancer, and other illnesses directly linked to dietary patterns there. In cities, however, we are grappling with obesity and an overconsumption of ultra-processed foods. The broader pattern reflects a food system designed to make such products easily accessible, readily available, and deceptively affordable,” she added.