Vol. 12, Special Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
Anita Gautam, Sandeep Kumar, Suneeta Paswan and Ragini Kumari

Abstract:
Food adulteration is undoubtedly a social evil which can be regarded as the outcome of an interaction between a number of social, economic, technical and human behavioural factors. It is a manifestation of a sick society and can be regarded as a crime similar to other crimes like theft, burglary or murder. It is felt that there is an urgent need for an impartial scientific study to determine the prevalence of food adulteration at household level in the country. It is equally important for the consumer to know the common adulterants and their effect on health. On the basis of pilot study 300 samples were selected from three different areas of Lucknow district through multistage random sampling technique. For the study married women of age groups (i.e. 15 to 49) were considered as study subjects who carried their families. Further, to carry out the study pre-designed and pre tested questionnaire was used. The result of the study shows that, statistically no significant difference among different educational groups was observed with respect to mean scores of type of adulteration of different food items except cereals and fruits. Regarding frequency of adulteration except for items rice-stone, mango-carbide, banana-carbide, pepper-papaya seed and chilly- brick powder non for items a significant difference among different educational groups was observed. Statistically no significant differences among different educational groups were observed with respect to awareness sores for harmful effects of adulteration. It was also found that there is no significant association between education and KAP sores for different variables except for food marks was observed (p>0.05) for consumer education.