Surat: Officials of health department of Surat Municipal Corporation have started conducting raids at shops selling mango juice in the city. Mango juice is sold in huge quantity during summer months. It is estimated that 2,000kg mango juice is consumed daily in the city in March and April. Traders generally mix milk, ice cream, artificial sweetener and lactose with mango juice.
“When mangoes are being sold at the rate of Rs100 per kg, how can traders sell ‘keri no ras’ for Rs80 per kg? A kg of mango gives only 400 gram juice. So, unless the traders add something, they can’t sell the juice so cheap,” an SMC officer said. A trader said, “Milk, ice cream, food colour and sugar are added in mango juice by us.” Dr Aashish Naik, chief health officer of SMC, said, “The ‘keri no ras’ that we know actually is mango milk shake.” SMC has given licences to only 12 producers to extract mango juice in the city.
SMC health department has in the last three days collected 18 samples of mango juice from eight places of Katargam and Adajan. The samples have been sent for analysis to the public health laboratory in Surat. The samples would be checked for adulteration, food colour, artificial sweetener and lactose content. The food colour and lactose content should not be exceed 100 particles per milligram.
“We have found that generally there is at least 250 milligram of milk, colour, essence and sweetener in 1kg of mango milk shake. Some add additional 200gm vanilla ice-cream too. Mango pulp is of B or C grade ripe mango and milk is skimmed and has no health value. Consumption of this type of ‘keri no ras’ makes a person’s throat itchy,” a food inspector said.
“Some producers tend to add juice of papaya and pumpkin too. In south Gujarat, people have a tendency to mix milk, vanilla ice-cream, sugar, colour and mango essence with mango juice,” a trader said.
Officials taking juice samples
