With Navratri going on and Ram Navami, Baisakhi and Eid coming up soon, it’s needless to say that households in India are busy preparing a lot of dishes. But the festival season also means adulteration in food ingredients like paneer, mawa, ghee and atta. The reason for adulteration is also evident because during this time, the demand for such items in the market is high, and adulteration fulfils it. Therefore, while buying goods these days, you should take special care to avoid adulterated items. Although there is no scope for adulteration in all things, a few things are more prone: flour. So, if you’re thinking of making flour halwa or pudding at home and buying flour, take some precautions. Because nowadays, flour is adulterated with chalk powder and boric powder. But by trying some of the following easy tips, you can test its quality and identify whether it is pure or adulterated.
- Test it with calcium carbonate: With this method, you can easily find out the impurities in the flour. For this, put a few drops of lemon juice in a spoonful of flour. If bubbles form in the dough, it is understood that your flour is adulterated. Do you know that chalky soil is also mixed with flour, and calcium carbonate is found in such soil? So, when adulterated flour is made in contact with lemon, bubbles start forming, proving that the dough is impure.
- Do laboratory tests at home: You can also check it through a laboratory test. However, you do not need to go to the laboratory for this. Instead, test it at home. First, you have to take a test tube and put in some flour samples. Then hydrochloric acid needs to be added to it. If some filterable thing is seen, understand that it is adulterated with chalk. You can buy hydrochloric acid from the medical store to test it.
- Test it with water at home: It may be adulterated if there is less bran in wheat flour. Here’s how you can quickly test it at home. Add half a teaspoon of flour to a glass of water. If something is seen floating in the flour, understand that it is adulterated.