Adulteration: After Vanilla and coffee now Pepper

Isnt there end for greed? After vanilla and coffee got adulterated now it is Pepper’s turn.

Pepper is mixed with deisel, yes you read it corectly it is “DIESEL” quoted to prevent fungus attack and to get good dark black color. >:(
50 tons came back with complaint, 850 were stored in different godowns. It was ordered to destroy adulterated pepper of worth 38 crores.
6000 tons are waiting for testing. >:(
thehindu.com/business/Indust … 038831.ece

Sri,

Thank you for sharing the link.

But black pepper from Kerala itself is loaded with high amounts of chemical. Bordeaux mixture and other chemicals mixed in wetting agents are used to prevent pepper corns from pest attack during the initial stage when they are tender(this is a very critical stage - pepper farmers reading this will understand better). They would soak up the chemicals. Washing and ozone treating will not help as chemicals would have penetrated inside the pepper corns.

Traditionally pepper after harvest was boiled in water for 10 minutes. This made pepper more dark and keeps them fresh for long run. But who has got the time to do all this nowadays.

Also gunny bags should be used for storage and not plastic.

High Tech Adulteration .