A few days ago, a video by a YouTuber talking about fake paneer in a restaurant took the internet by storm and led to heated discussions online. More recently, celebrated chef Vikas Khanna shared his views on the incident and slammed the "misinformation" being spread about food science. For context: the vlogger had posted a reel on Instagram documenting his visits to several celebrity-owned restaurants in Mumbai. His proclaimed objective was to find out whether the paneer served at these establishments was authentic.
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At Torii (a restaurant co-owned by Gauri Khan), he conducted an iodine tincture test on a piece of paneer served to him. When the paneer turned black on contact with iodine, it indicated the presence of starch. The YouTuber took this as proof of adulteration and alleged that the paneer used in the dish was fake/synthetic. The video went viral on social media and it was later taken down. The restaurant issued a statement in which it clarified that "The iodine test reflects the presence of starch, not the authenticity of the paneer. For all dishes that contain soy-based ingredients (a staple in Asian food), this reaction is expected." Read the full story here.
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The incident has created a lot of buzz online and sparked fresh concerns about fake paneer and food adulteration in India. Chef Vikas Khanna took to his Instagram stories to share his views on the same and provided a fact check from his professional perspective. He wrote, "I've been cooking & working with the science of food for the past several decades. I've never seen such terrible misinformation, like a YouTuber who claims to be a food scientist. IODINE changes colour with reaction under the presence of ingredients: potatoes, rice, bread, cornflour, flour, and unripe bananas. The use of these ingredients (and thus the reaction) could also happen in cross-contamination. It's scary that unqualified people are taken seriously."
As per experts, an iodine test is just one among several other possible indicators of synthetic paneer. The method is not foolproof since the paneer may have come in contact with other ingredients that may cause the colour to change. It is best to use other tests in addition to this one to verify whether it is fake or not. Some of the tests also need to be conducted on raw paneer or boiled paneer before it is cooked further.