The extent to which people would go to make money quickly.

One of the main job functions of my wife as a Q.A. Manager with Supplyco is to inspect foodgrains procured by her organisation, which is then distributed to the public via a
plethora of channels like the PDS (ration shops), Maveli stores, Laabham stores, special
Onam bazaars, the school mid-day-meal schemes etc.

There are set specifications to which each item must adhere to so as to pass inspection
and to be accepted by her organisation. Apart from rice, wheat, chilli, pulses etc, which
are inspected by the Q.A.s on delivery, her organisation also sources packed items like
cooking oil, spices in powdered form, etc. from various vendors.

These are not inspected on delivery because physical inspection is not good enough to
determine their quality. Instead samples are taken randomly from various stores and
sent to food-testing labs which check for any kind of adulteration. Recently a sample of
cooking-oil was sent to the lab and the results indicated adulteration.

I am aware that many suppliers compromise on quantity or quality or both so as to
make extra profits. But what shocked me was what they used for adulteration. They
had mixed waste petroleum oil (known in local lingo as kari-oil) to oil that is used for
cooking !!!

Can you imagine the audacity of adulterating edible-oil used for human consumption
with something as far removed from it as petroleum oil ? Imagine what people are
actually consuming when they prepare food in this oil.

Predictably, the supplier has been banned from supplying anymore to Supplyco, but
the adulterated products would still continue to find place in stores that are not part
of the Supplyco chain & uninformed buyers would be harming themselves by cooking
with this oil.

Wonder what all harmful substances we are ingesting unknowingly with other such
adulterated products in the market.