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Comment by 0xmohit | Hacker News Reader

Research by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that 70% of the milk sold in India is adulterated [1]. Unfortunately, there are little or no checks by the government agencies and businesses continues to sell adulterated products. People sell milk prepared out of refined oil and detergents. It has been covered widely [2], but the practice continues unabated.

It becomes hard to trust those selling organic stuff (milk, vegetables or chicken) as they are practically willing to supply as much quantity as one wants to procure.

Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3].

[1] http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indian...

[2] https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/10/most-indian-m...

[3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-...

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"Adulterated" mostly means "diluted with water".To be honest "diluted milk from milk man" is not news to Indians :) Also, only 8% had residue of detergents mainly due to improper cleaning of the containers (if you buy loose milk instead of packaged). Most families in India make yogurt at home and the typical way to gauge the dilution is to look at the thickness of the yogurt made out of the milk.

> Also, only 8% had residue of detergents

Only 8%? Well, then it's all fine then. Nothing to worry about at all.

How much is it from our own households and silverware?

Original poster didn't make any mention of water in the 70%, but quoted detergents. I quoted the real value, which is 8%.

In the linked article, "adulterated" doesn't refer to "dilute with water". Milk being sold here is mostly synthetic: made out of detergents and vegetable oil. There have been videos of people involved in doing so and they've claimed it's pretty tough to detect as the amount of yogurt or cheese obtained from such milk is often similar to what one would obtain from pure milk or even slightly better.

From the link (http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indian...) you posted, at the bottom :

"Water, most common adulterant

Water turned out to be the most common adulterant in milk. It reduces the nutritional value of milk."

>Adulterated" mostly means "diluted with water

Decidedly false. The milk vendors add chemicals such as boric acid and paint thinners. Extremely harmful to the health.

My personal solution has been to give up all animal products.

How does that help with the adulterated vegetables?

Nobody is dosing vegetables with antibiotics. Bacteria that are pathological for plants generally want nothing to do with the warm, oxygenated environment of people.

The post user spraak was responding to, who's content I was responding to, which you responded to contained the final line:

Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3].

and the reference [3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-...

which refers to the human active hormones/steroids that are put in Inidan vegetables in a similar effort to marginally improve their yield with unknown, but probable systemic and ecological effects. The point being that unregulated food markets of any sort will lead to unhealthy and societally damaging "externalities" even in the predominantly vegetarian India.

That I can agree with 100%

First of all, why does it need to? It's so tiring when a solution is thrown out just because it doesn't solve everything. A very common argument against vegans is "well, animals (like rats, mice) are still (accidentally) killed in harvesting grains". Yeah, so? That could be prevented with better care harvesting, and also not eating animal products is a massive reduction already vs. the amount of animals kill from grain harvesting.

I think the argument is that our entire food supply is corrupted / adulterated so switching your diet from one type of organism to another doesn't improve the issue since both organisms are being treated with "corruptions" (genetic modification, pesticides, chemicals that aid growth). Unless you are saying that the adulteration in vegetables and grains is less harmful to humans than that in animals the solution proposed doesn't improve "adulteration".

(I don't really agree with either viewpoint I'm just trying to explain the argument)

Animal tissue unlike plant tissue accumulates stuff magnitudes more.

Bioaccumulation of harmful substances as we rise through the food chain is a known issue.

Using our best antibiotics to produce 60 billion chickens per year is a state financed suicide and not at all a free market mechanism.

A grain sprayed with herbicide or a fruit sprayed with an insecticide is going to accumulate in your meat just as well as it will in a chicken, but I agree it will concentrate in predators (like salmon) and omnivores (like humans).

What I don't understand is how the unregulated shipment of of a antibiotic from one country (where it is controlled) for a chicken industry in another country (one of whom was actually bought by pharma company in India) to increase profits of both private companies is "state financed suicide and not at all a free market mechanism". It sounds exactly like laissez faire capitalism exploitation due to bypass of state regulation.

> Why does it need to?

I'm sure you'd rather your romaine not come with a free side of E. coli.

If the majority of the food supply is tainted, your choices from within it doesn't affect the rest.

Who at all is using antibiotics to prevent E. coli on vegetables? I thought that's why vegetables need to be washed first.

Much of India is already vegetarian and it doesn't solve the problem of unscrupulous vendors, see vegetables [3] above. So not only are there e.coli on your vegetables, but they contain human active hormones because of an unregulated market. No one is arguing that meat consumption is better for the environment, just that the post you're responding to explicitly refers to the vegetable issue as well.

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