SUMMARY OF ARTICLE

ABSTRACT

Milk price is decided based on fat content and hence it encourages its adulteration by mixing cheaper oils and fats. Inherent drawbacks of methods presently employed for testing authenticity of milk fat, coupled with use of innovative techniques in the adulteration have compelled for adopting advanced analytical techniques to tackle this evil. Among various advanced analytical techniques, gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of triglycerides is internationally adopted as a reference method. This seems to be the most powerful method as it is simple, robust, fast and comprehensive. However, apprehension prevails that specifications given on purity of milk fat by the method may cause false positive results in India. Therefore, in a given situation some quality conscious Indian dairy organisations have started using this method with selected specifications. Since, no concise information is available in the literature bout the method, attempt has been made in this article to present an overview of the method.