Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Synthetic Dye Adulteration in Street-Sold Snacks from Mumbai Suburban Region, India

Street foods are an important part of urban diets in India, especially in the metro cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi.The colour appearance of these foods often comes from synthetic food dyes, which sometimes go over safe limits or include banned substances which ultimately leads to illful impact of humans.The current study focuses more on the presence of synthetic dye adulterants in commonly sold street snacks from the suburbs of Mumbai.I collected eighty food samples, such as jalebi, samosa, bhaji, chaat chutneys, pav bhaji masala, and ice gola syrups, from major street food vending areas or Khau-galli.Here for better and accurate result, I, used thin-layer chromatography and UV-visible spectrophotometry for qualitative screening, while high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used for quantitative estimation.The dyes we found included allowed colors like tartrazine, sunset yellow, carmoisine, and ponceau 4R, along with banned dyes like metanil yellow.About 32.5% of the samples exceeded the maximum tolerable limits which was approved and given by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.Our risk assessment, based on estimated daily intake, suggests potential health issues for regular consumers especially the young kids who are more enthusiastic for eating outside from street vendors.These findings show the need for better monitoring and increased public awareness about food dye adulteration in informal food markets.