Yummy is yuck: Detergent, chemicals in Diwali sweets

TASTES FUNNY: The employee of a sweets shop adds adulterants to milk.

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Keywords: Toxic, Diwali

New Delhi: The delicious sweets bought from the friendly neighbourhood mithaiwala may have chemicals, detergent and other adulterants.

That’s what a sweets seller in Delhi confessed to on hidden camera. The sweets seller revealed to a CNN-IBN reporter the tricks he uses to make his sweets appealing.

“Dudh se hi mava tayyar hota hai, aur mava se hi saari mithayi banti hai. Dudh se itna mava tayar nahi hota, to mava jo hai jaada powder se tayyar hota hai,” he said. (Sweets are made of mawa but we don’t get enough mawa, so we use powder instead. In fact, most sweets are made of powder than mawa.)

“I have been in this business for some 15 years, so I would say no sweet is safe to eat,” he says. “We use detergents and chemicals in sweets—things which are dangerous to even touch are put in milk.”

“Haryana border, UP border ho Gaya, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar or Mawana—these places are centres of milk adulteration. Vendors are capable of turning 50 litres of milk into hundred by adding water. By investing Rs 5 in adulteration I can get a profit of Rs 50.”

Reputed shops using spurious products ensure that the deals are not traced back to them, he says. “Take South Delhi for example. All sweets shops here adulterate sweets. They have employees for this but nothing is done inside shops,” says the adulterator.

The adulterator’s final confession: “I would say most sweets in the market are not safe.” So this Diwali when you pop a laddoo into your mouth, pray it’s safe.