Synthetic dyes used in various food items like sweets, candies and beverages cause severe health hazards if they are not food grade and within the legally permitted limits. In Pakistan due to increased consumption of attractive colored food items, the use of dyes in every food product is also increasing. Already there is no study to appraise the nature and level of colorants. Therefore, this study focused on determination of synthetic dye (tartrazine) used in candies, sweets and beverages to determine its safer levels.
This research work was done in food science and nutrition lab of Food Science and Human Nutrition Department of UVAS, Lahore, Pakistan. Total 180 samples were collected from all 9 towns of Lahore plus Lahore Cantt. Samples included 30 candies purchased from local vendors and 30 candies from shops, 30 sweet samples (rasgulla) from local vendors and 30 sweet samples from sweet shops. Moreover, 30 slush samples locally available in streets and 30 slush samples from shops of posh areas in Lahore. The results were compared with the previous held researches in other countries.
The food samples were divided into two categories local shops and local vendors. Total six local shops and six vendors of each town of lahore were selected for the collection of samples in triplicate pattern. All the samples were evaluated for spectrophotometric determination of tartrazine by using Beer’s law. Abosrbtion peeks were checked at a wavelength of 421.6 and the mean values of concentration of tartrazine in slush ranged from 0.269 to 0.275 mg/g obtained from local vendors and shops respectively.Moreover, the mean values of tartrazine ranged from 0.258 to 0.309 mg/g for vendor sweet and shop sweet samples respectively and mean value for candies ranged from 0.200 -0.704mg/g. Data was analyzed through the Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS 22.0. Mean values with standard deviation in percentages of results were analyzed by descriptive analyses. To examine the relationship among the variables of candies, sweets and slush samples chi-square test was used. Further to compare tartrazine levels in the local shops and foodstuff obtained from the common vendors of Lahore, independent “t” test was used. 2 way-ANOVA was applied to check the differences of all samples in 10 towns of Lahore.
According to my investigations the quality of foodstuff collected from local shops and from local vendors is almost same and both contain high amounts of tartrazine.I suggest consumers, they should prefer to buy branded foodstuff from superstores as compared to local shops and local vendors because the keeping quality and handling practices are good in superstores than local shops.