Determination of the Presence, Concentration, and effects of Formalin on Raw milk around Nyeri Municipality

Abstract

Milk adulteration is done to increase the milk quantity or its shelf life. This research focused on the latter, accomplished by adding chemicals such as formalin. This is a great global concern and it causes detrimental effects such as cancer, myeloid leukemia. The chemical effects of formalin on milk include reducing its pH, protein, and fat percentage. Five samples were collected from several milk vendors around Nyeri Municipality and a sample directly from the cow. The pure milk had the fastest reduction time (18.3±1.53minutes) in Methylene Blue Reduction Test. The milk samples had an average of 3.3929±2.0579ppm formalin. In UV-Vis, the LOD and LOQ, R2 were 0.001M and 0.004M, 0.9868 respectively. Both the butter fat, and pH values decreased with formalin concentration increase. Their mean was 3.1±0.4% and 5.47 ± 0.806 respectively. Out of the six samples, 83.33% of them were adultered with formalin.