With food prices touching an all-time high, you need to be particularly wary of the menace of adulteration and ensure that you do not end up paying a steep price for unsafe food.

Whenever food prices shoot up, adulterators become active because with spiralling prices, their “profit” margins go up. Take the example of ground spices. Since the prices of spices have skyrocketed, there is every danger of them being mixed with highly toxic colours to make up their volume. Chilly powder could well be adulterated with Sudan red, a carcinogenic synthetic colour that is prohibited in food. Or haldi, with metanil yellow or lead chromate. In order to curb the menace, the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act mandates that ground spices be sold only in packages and not in loose form, but this is hardly enforced.

Unfortunately, state governments have never bothered to pay adequate attention to enforcing the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, meant to ensure the safety of food sold. In fact, in the absence of a comprehensive study, it is difficult to put a figure on the percentage of adulteration. Last month, in reply to a Parliament question on the subject, minister of state for health and family welfare Dinesh Trivedi said that on an average, 9.96 per cent of the food samples tested by state governments in 2009 under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act were found to be adulterated. This percentage itself is quite alarming, but a comprehensive study could well reveal a much higher percentage.

The new food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, that will soon take over the overall enforcement of food safety and standards in India, is formulating a comprehensive food safety surveillance framework. The regulator also intends to promote state-of-the-art mobile food testing laboratories that can visit local markets, restaurants, warehouses, schools and other public places for on-the-spot testing of food items being sold.

But till these are in place and food safety is properly enforced, consumers need to be extremely cautious about the food they purchase. Residents associations can invest in a small food testing kit and check the quality of food sold in neighbourhood shops and boycott those selling adulterated goods. But eventually, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure the safety of the food sold to consumers. So in addition to containing the price rise, the government needs to urgently step up the surveillance of food for adulteration.