Abstract:
Adulteration of cow's ghee with cheaper and easily available vegetable oils and animal fat
became popular in commerce due to high demand. Amongst various testing methods,
qualitative tests are cost-effective and the present study has selected suspected several
market samples with original ghee prepared at the laboratory(S-01). Market samples were
collected from central, southern, northern, and western provinces (S-02 to S-14). Modified Salkowski's reaction test was tested against those samples and observed the appearance
of red colour. Pure ghee samples gave red colour because of the presence of cholesterol,
whereas samples having plant steroids gave a reddish brown colour. Sample S-01, S-13, and
S-14 gave red colour. From the results, it can be concluded that samples with an
adulteration level of more than 5 % can be identified by using chromogenic tests as a cost effective identification of ghee. In contrast, the furfural test is specific for the detection of
sesame oil in ghee. Ghee samples adulterated with sesame oil gave a crimson red colour
and samples S-03, S-05, and S-07 gave positive results.
