Maneka Gandhi on India's ghee

[theist 1]

From the Sampradaya Sun.

 

How is Ghee Being Adulterated?

BY: MANEKA GANDHI

 

Jul 20, BIHAR, INDIA (TIMES) — Ghee from India could contain all kinds of rendered animal fat.

 

Some years ago it was discovered that owners of Vanaspathi oils were putting cow and pig lard into the oil. There was a furor which died down after a few months and no one knows till today what happened to the Jains who owned the enterprise - but I have little doubt that they got off and a few bureaucrats and policemen are richer.

 

Ghee (from Sanskrit

ghrta

meaning "sprinkled") is clarified butter, sacred to the gods. On June 13, a ghee manufacturing unit was raided by the health officers and police of Agra. Hundreds of tins of ghee were found in the Jharna nullah locality. The so-called ghee was being manufactured from animal fat boiled in huge iron pans. "25 big drums, 150 tins and four furnaces, knives and country pistols were recovered from the site" a police official said. "Animal hides of cows, monkeys, donkeys, horses and dogs hanging by the trees and bones littered showed the scale of manufacturing being carried out clandestinely for years."

 

Now comes the standard Indian part - "Police said at least 50 people must have been working there in the sheds but none could be caught, probably because the information about the raid was leaked to them."

 

Agra Municipal corporation’s animal husbandry department Chief B.S. Verma said that residents of the locality had complained for years about the spurious manufacturing unit, but the department could not find the unit.

 

TV channels aired footage filmed at ghee manufacturing plants. The footage confirmed that across India, animals were being rendered and their fat added to ghee. The ghee plants had dead animals all around, animal fat boiling in big drums and slabs of fat hanging from the ceilings.

 

Members of ISKCON collected samples of commercial ghee in Pune and sent them to be tested at the Anatech Laboratory and research centre in Bangalore. The tests based on the Fancier-Transbraned Infrared spectrum replication showed beyond a doubt that the ghee contained animal fat. This laboratory, which has analyzed hundreds of ghees, said that of all the brands in India, Amul was the best brand for ghee and butter, with even Nestle adulterated with about 5% vegetable oil fats. They said that most ghee, including Amul, was a mixture of cow and buffalo milk

 

Unfortunately most labs in India do not have the equipment to test. They can simply say that the ghee is adulterated. Why is ghee being adulterated? Firstly, because there is no milk. India prides itself on being the world’s largest producer of leather so all the cows are being killed off rapidly to service the hundreds of leather units in Chennai, Kanpur and Kolkata - which kill lakhs of cows and calves. Recent raids have found that only 30% of the "milk" we drink, is milk. The rest is a mixture of soap, urea, earthworm fat, oil and whiteners. So if there is no milk, how does one get the ghee? 450,000 tonnes of ghee are supposedly made every year, 80% of which is eaten and the rest offered to the gods in rituals that include marriage and death. This is an impossible figure - the actual ghee would be less than a quarter.

 

The second reason is that milk products like ghee only have a 5% profit margin so the only way to be profitable is to use animal fat.

 

If you insist on ghee, make your own. Boil milk. Keep taking the cream off. When the cream is cold, take a wooden stick and churn it. The water separates and the rest becomes unsalted butter. Melt the butter over low heat gradually in a heavy-bottomed pot. Do not stir. Cook until it is a clear golden liquid. It may bubble and foam may form on top which you’ll need to skim off and discard. Remove from heat while the liquid is a clear gold. Any darker and it’s overcooked. Take a large sieve and line it with 4 sheets of cheesecloth or muslin. Place it over a clean dry pot. While still hot, carefully strain the ghee through the cheesecloth-lined sieve into the pot. Transfer the strained ghee carefully into a clean glass jar and shut tightly. Ghee at room temperature looks semi-solid. Ghee can be stored for extended periods without refrigeration, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation. Always use a clean utensil to scoop out ghee.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2009 by theist

[OmHari 0]

Hari bol , I have heard about these heart drenching cold blooded news as well and hardly anybody is doing anything about it. Its nice to put it here for awareness for those who still think that all commercial ghee and milk is consumable.

 

It is advisable to make ghee mostly butter "maakhan" at home than to buy into commercial . Better still to have your own cows. Oh come on, if we have manpower into building huge temples then why not have a yard for keeping our animals protected and loved. There is a law in India about cow protection, let us ALL work towards implementing it rather than throwing it all into the hands of government authorities and doing nothing about it ! People have gone too far with their avarice:Greed is the issue here.And lack of morality lack of honesty

[sambya 0]

i have heard of people using banana pulp to produce cheap ghee . apart from that many other ghee producing companies use vanaspati or vegetable fats to adulterate their product .

 

personally i have noticed that ghee produced by ashrams , small rural cooperative societies and upliftment projects are the best . its identical to home made ghee . the ghee from iskcon is also of excellent quality and comes at a cheap price !!

 

its very dissapointing to see anyone using bad quality ghee for yagna or bhoga cooking .

[asrsubbu 0]

namskaram

 

it is very informative. thankyou

could you please tell me that how to identify the audlterted ghee using kitchan ? because homam and other rituals we add this to fire (agni).

animal fat means homa may distroyed. So please ...Ho to idenify this type of bad ghee?

[asrsubbu 0]

put a half spoon of ghee on your palm if its melt its pure. desi ghee melts quickly on body heat.

[sambya 0]

if you know the smell of true cow ghee then you can easily identify it from colour and its distinctive smell . in indian temperatures its semisolid for most of the time . cow ghee is generally golden brown in colour and not white .

 

but the best indentification would be its beautifull smell ...

[Haridasdasdas 0]

I thought I'd add that a Gujurati friend of mine told me once that the vegetable ghee in india often contains not just animals fats, but cow fat too.

 

I don't know the truth of this, or how prevalent it is. It is my understanding that ghee available in Europe, both vegetable and butter, is vegetarian.