Walk into any average grocery store and you will find thousands of organic food items lying on the shelves. With time and with increased health awareness many people consume only organic food items whether it is fruits, vegetables, food grains, tea or spices. Organic food items are either farmer’s self-grown crops without the use of synthetic fertilizers or are processed items made from organically produced raw materials.
Some people grow their own organic fruits or vegetables on their rooftop but there are many who have to depend upon the items available in the market. But the question here is, are these food items really organic? You pay a hefty amount hence have you the right to check if the food is good for your health or not? Currently, most of the milk people consume contains urea, soda, detergent etc. These things are added to increase the stability and color. So are you drinking healthy milk?
Hemalatha Rajendran, a B.Tech graduate from Chennai, has an easy solution for your big problem. Through a small test, you can check whether your organic food is actually organic, or is mixed with urea, or pesticides. The B.Tech graduate has developed strips of A4 sheets, similar to a litmus paper. When you dip this strip in the milk and notice a change in color that means it contains impurities in it. Hemalatha had dipped the A4 sheets in a reagent that she found while working on a pesticide detection tool. She said “The reagents I used are the ones laboratories generally use to identify urea or pesticide. Once ready, the strips can be used by a layman to test the authenticity of their organic products”.
She also explained that “The pesticide detection device is made from decolorized sketch cartridge in which the reagent is introduced. It has a stability of 10 days and costs just Rs 5 for 10 strips. And as it is based on the colourimetric method, even a common man can use it”.
In case of milk, after dipping the strip, if the color changes from pale yellow to a brighter shade then it has impurities. But in case of vegetables and fruits, you will have to put a small extract from them on the strip and if it turns bluish, it contains chemicals.
