The famous Tirupati laddus are at the centre of a controversy after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu claimed that ‘animal fat’ was in the ghee used to make the laddus during the previous regime headed by Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
The Tirupati or Srivari laddus have been devotional offerings, prasadam, made to the deity of Sri Venkateswara at Tirumala in Tirupati district for over 300 years. They are made in special kitchens, ‘potus,’ using gram flour, sugar, cashews, cardamom, ghee and raisins. The making of the laddoos involves the use of approximately 10 tonnes of cow ghee on a daily basis. Around 3,00,000 laddoos are distributed at the temple every day.
Earlier this month, Mr. Naidu said a lab report had indicated that ghee used to make the laddoos was contaminated, possibly with animal fats such as beef tallow and lard.
The report was from a laboratory in Gujarat, the Centre of Analysis and Learning in Livestock and Food (CALF) at the Central government-run National Dairy Development Board. It was the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), an independent trust that manages the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, that had called for the report.
Meanwhile, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the government’s apex food regulatory authority that functions under the Union Health Ministry, has issued a show-cause notice to A.R. Dairy, one of the companies that supplied ghee to the Tirupati temple, for allegedly providing substandard products. The dairy has denied that its ghee was impure or substandard. The issue has snowballed and, the Supreme Court weighing in, said there is currently nothing to show that animal fat was used in the preparation of Tirupati laddus during the previous regime and said Mr. Naidu should have “kept the gods away from politics”.
What exactly was stated in the lab report, what are the FSSAI regulations around ghee testing and what are animal fat adulterants?
What is beef tallow?
Beef tallow is made by removing, simmering and clarifying fatty tissue that surrounds the organs of ruminant animals. Ruminant animals are those that chew their cud and include cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats. It is white-ish, solidifies when cooled and has a texture similar to that of butter.
Beef tallow is made up primarily of saturated fats, and is usually used for cooking at high temperatures such as deep frying and roasting. It also has other uses – it can be an ingredient in candles and soaps for instance.
As per the FSSAI beef fat or suet means fat obtained from a beef carcass. It should have a saponification value varying from 193 to 200 and an iodine value from 35 to 46. It may also contain permitted food additives
What is lard?
Lard is obtained by rendering or melting the fatty tissue of hogs or domesticated pigs. It is a creamy white solid or semisolid, also with a butter-like consistency.
Lard was once a highly valued cooking and baking fat. Nowadays though, while used for certain cooking and baking purposes, lard has mostly been replaced by various types of vegetable oils, many of which are lower in total and saturated fat content.
Lard, the FSSAI says, means the rendered fat from hogs and shall not contain more than one percent of substances other than fatty acids and fat. It should have a saponification value varying from 192 to 198 and iodine value from 52 to 65. It may also contain permitted food additives.
Also Read:Politicising the laddu: On the Tirupati laddu and its ‘adulteration’
How can animal fats appear in milk products?
There is a long history of the adulteration of ghee in India – both with vegetable and animal fats. This is done primarily due to economics – vegetable oils and tallow are much cheaper than milk fats, and ghee is a premium, expensive and much in demand commodity.
Common adulterants include edible vegetable oil, hydrogenated fats, animal body fats and starchy substances.
What is the FSSAI test for the presence of animal body fat in vegetable fat?
An FSSAI 2021 document says gas liquid chromatography can be used for this test. “The methyl esters of fatty acids are formed using methanol and alkali and separated by gas – liquid chromatography using a flame ionisation detector. The elution pattern of methyl esters can be compared with authentic oils for identification,” the document states.
It also lists the microscopic examination of fat crystals. “On crystallisation these glycerides exhibit a characteristic crystalline appearance when viewed under microscope.” The size and shape of the crystals depend upon the strength of solution, amount of fat taken and the time allowed for crystallization, the documents notes.
What is the FSSAI test for the adulteration of ghee?
In 2019, the FSSAI issued an order that stated Reversed Phase - High Performance Liquid Chromatography or RP-HPLC was to be used to detect if ghee had been adulterated with vegetable oils. This method, the FSSAI order says, is “based on the detection of cholesterol and β-Sitosterol as markers in the unsaponifiable matter (USM) of pure ghee and adulterated ghee samples.” β-Sitosterol serves as an indicator for the adulteration in ghee by certain vegetable oils/fats.
The FSSAI document states that in pure/genuine ghee, no peak of β-Sitosterol is expected to be found. This test is applicable for the determination of soybean oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil and groundnut oil in ghee, it says.
What do the lab reports say?
Two available reports say that the samples tested are of cow ghee, received on July 17, and with the analysis completed on July 23. The results state that the samples do not comply with the requirements of FSSAI for the tested parameters. Of the several tests the samples were put through, the parameters that did not comply are highlighted. One is the purity of milk fat, another is saponifaction value, a third is β-Sitosterol and the others are the presence of various acids.
Saponification value (SV) is the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide (KOH) required to saponify one gram of fat or oil. It is a measure of the average molecular weight of fatty acids in a given sample, and is an important index of oil quality.
The FSSAI states that the saponifaction value of ghee should be between 205 and 235. Both lab reports show higher saponification values: one of 249.644 and the other of 241.952.
Both reports also said the samples had β-Sitosterol, possibly indicating adulteration with certain vegetable oils/fats.
The animal fat issue
The purity of the milk fat is detailed in the annexure of the reports, and it is this annexure that lists the various contaminants that may be present including beef tallow and lard.
The annexure lists a range of ‘Standard S value limits’ and states that if any S-value of the sample given falls outside of these limits, then the sample is deemed to contain a ‘foreign fat’. The S - value is a mathematical equation used to determine the integrity of milk fat in dairy products and can be used to determine adulterants.
S1 is adulteration with: soya bean, sun flower, olive, rape seed, lin seed, what germ, maize germ, cotton seed, fish oil. S2 is with coconut and palm kernel fat. S3 is with palm oil and beef tallow, S4 is with lard and S5 is the total adulterated fat.
As per the annexure, all of the S-values of the samples tested fall outside of the ranges listed, indicating the presence of foreign fats.
However which specific foreign fat it was, and the amounts of foreign fats found in the sample are unclear. For instance, we do not know how much of what may have been sunflower oil or beef tallow or cotton seed oil or a combination of foreign fats was found.
The annexure, it should be noted, also lists a number of circumstances under which the results may give a false positive.
What does the lab report mean
Food safety scientist V. Pasupathy says the issue boils down to economics. Good quality cow ghee, he says, is priced at over ₹700 per kg. If the dairy supplying the temple had priced it at ₹320 per kg as has been reported, then that is a strong indication that the ghee was not of good quality and was possibly compromised.
The usual adulterant used in ghee, he explains, is hydrogenated vegetable oil, generally palm oil (dalda or vanaspati) as it is similar in texture, and, a common person cannot tell the difference, especially when cow ghee flavouring agents, which are available in the market, are added.
Another possibility, he says, is cross-contamination from the dairy – if the dairy was also involved in manufacturing and processing other products, this could have led to contamination.
In the Turpati laddu case, he points out, the foreign fat that the lab has detected could be any one or more of the many adulterants it has listed. “The normal protocol is to test for the presence of adulterants. This only tells you whether the ghee is pure or adulterated – with any one of, or a number of things. It does not tell you which adulterant has been used or how much, unless you then do another set of specific tests to find out. Generally, no one spends money on finding out which adulterant there was – the fact that the ghee was adulterated itself is the problem. As per information available to the public at present, it is not known if any further tests were done [in the case of the Tirupatti laddu ghee],” he says.
The most likely possibility, he says, is that the ghee was adulterated with a vegetable oil. However, other possibilities cannot be ruled out and only further, specific tests to check for each of these possible adulterants may give the answer.
Published - October 01, 2024 03:50 pm IST
