Common milk adulteration and their detection techniques

Abstract

Food adulteration is a global concern and developing countries are at higher risk associated with it due to lack of monitoring and policies. However, this is one of the most common phenomena that has been overlooked in many countries. Unfortunately, in contrast to common belief, milk adulterants can pose serious health hazards leading to fatal diseases. This paper presents a detailed review of common milk adulterants as well as different methods to detect the adulterants both qualitatively and quantitatively. This study is organized to be an 'adulterant based' study instead of 'techniques based' one, where qualitative detection for most of the common adulterants are enlisted and quantitative detection methods are limited to few major adulterants of milk. Apart from regular techniques, recent development in these detection techniques have also been reported. Nowadays milk is being adulterated in more sophisticated ways that demands for cutting edge research for the detection of the adulterants. This review intends to contribute towards the common knowledge base regarding possible milk adulterants and their detection techniques.