A damning expose unfolded in Parliament as AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha dissected the food adulteration menace threatening India’s health landscape. He framed it as a stealthy assault on families, with toxins infiltrating staples and imperiling the young, old, and pregnant.
Chadha’s speech was a catalog of culinary crimes: urea in milk, oxytocin shots in produce for unnatural growth, starch and lye in cheese, soap in frozen treats, fake flavors in juices, industrial lubricants in oils, adulterants like brick grit in spices, colorants in brews, growth hormones in meats, and cheap fats in festive sweets. Imagine feeding your infant what you believe is nutritious milk, unaware it’s poisoned with industrial waste.
Statistics painted a dire portrait—71% of milk adulterated with urea, 64% with chemicals to mask spoilage. Production lags behind sales, breeding fraud. One-quarter of vegetables tested from 2014 to 2026 failed purity checks. Chadha called out spice companies banned in Europe for deadly pesticides, still peddled unchecked in India.
‘Foreign bans for pet food standards don’t apply here,’ he noted bitterly. Chadha’s roadmap for redemption: empower FSSAI with resources, amplify penalties, introduce public shaming via recalls, and outlaw deceptive health pitches. His words compel a reckoning, urging authorities to reclaim trust in our food supply before it’s too late.