Ghee in India is adulterated with vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable fat), cheaper refined oils such as palm oil, and animal body fats, with starch, colour and flavouring used to bulk it out or disguise it. Laboratories catch these with the Baudouin test, the Reichert-Meissl (RM) value, the butyro-refractometer (BR) reading and newer sterol and fatty acid tests. No single test catches everything, which is why a full lab report matters more than any one result.
This article explains what goes into fake or blended ghee, how regulators and laboratories detect each adulterant, and where those tests fall short. If you want the checks you can do in your own kitchen, we cover them separately in how to tell if ghee is pure at home. Here the focus is on what happens in a lab.
At a glance
- Ghee is adulterated with vanaspati, refined vegetable oils such as palm oil, and animal body fats; cruder fraud adds starch for bulk and colour or flavour to disguise the blend.
- Indian vanaspati must contain at least 5 per cent sesame oil under a 1962 notification, so the Baudouin test turns it pink; FSSAI requires ghee to test negative.
- FSSAI's identity limits for ghee: a Reichert-Meissl value of at least 24.0 and a butyro-refractometer reading of 40.0 to 44.0 at 40 °C. Palm oil barely moves the BR reading until it reaches about 10 per cent.
- Newer checks in the standard: β-sitosterol must be absent and the fatty acid profile must match; research methods caught palm oil at 5 per cent and pork fat at 1 per cent.
- Ask for a batch-coded report showing the Baudouin test, RM value and BR reading. A report is evidence only for the tests it lists.
What is ghee adulterated with in India?
The adulterants that FSSAI's tests focus on are other fats: vanaspati, refined vegetable oils such as palm oil, and animal body fats. Cruder fraud adds starch, such as mashed potato, for bulk, and synthetic colour or ghee-like flavour to hide the blend. Each needs a different test, which is why one result cannot clear a jar.
Ramani and colleagues, writing in 2025, describe milk fat adulteration with cheap fats or oils as a widespread issue, particularly in developing countries like India. Their study focused on palm oil, which they note is widely used in the food sector because it is inexpensive. A 2025 study by Ali and colleagues called the rapid and specific detection of animal fat, mainly pork fat, in ghee a significant challenge. Neither paper gives a figure for how much of the market is affected, so this article does not give one either.
| Adulterant | Why it is used | Main laboratory check |
|---|---|---|
| Vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable fat) | Cheaper than milk fat | Baudouin test for the sesame-oil marker |
| Refined vegetable oils such as palm oil | Cheaper than milk fat | BR reading, RM value, β-sitosterol test, fatty acid profile |
| Animal body fats | Cheap, and similar to milk fat in composition | BR reading, fatty acid profile; research methods such as FTIR |
| Starch (mashed potato and similar) | Adds bulk | Iodine turns it blue |
| Synthetic colour and flavour | Makes a blend look and smell like ghee | Colour tests for coal tar dyes; not allowed in ghee at all |
The last row is simple in law. The FSSAI standard for milk fat products says the raw material used for ghee "shall be free from added flavour, colour or preservative". Any added colour or essence is a breach on its own, whatever else is in the jar.
How does the Baudouin test detect vanaspati in ghee?
Indian vanaspati must contain sesame oil as a built-in marker. The Baudouin test mixes melted ghee with hydrochloric acid and furfural; sesame oil's compounds turn the acid layer pink or red. Pure ghee has no sesame oil, so the FSSAI ghee standard requires the Baudouin test to be negative.
FSSAI's laboratory manual for milk products explains the logic. A 1962 Ministry of Agriculture notification required hydrogenated edible fat to contain not less than 5 per cent sesame oil by weight, precisely so that ghee adulterated with it "can be easily established".
The test has clear limits. It reacts only to sesame oil's constituents, which are not found in other fats, so a refined oil that contains no sesame passes it. FSSAI's own rapid-test manual notes that it cannot tell sesame oil from vanaspati, and that some coal tar dyes also give a pink colour with acid, which has to be ruled out. A positive result is meaningful. A negative one says only that there is no sesame oil.
What do the RM value and BR reading show?
They are the two classic identity checks for milk fat. The RM value measures short-chain fatty acids, mainly butyric and caproic, that milk fat contains and other common fats largely lack. The BR reading measures how the melted fat bends light. Enough foreign fat pushes one or both outside the legal range.
The FSSAI standard for ghee sets an RM value of at least 24.0 and a BR reading at 40 °C of 40.0 to 44.0. The milk products manual gives the background figures:
- RM value. Cow and buffalo ghee typically sits around 28. Of the common vegetable oils, only coconut and palm kernel contain steam-volatile acids, and both show an RM value of about 7. Diluting milk fat with them, or with any other oil, lowers the figure.
- BR reading. Milk fat reads 40 to 43 and most vegetable oils and fats read above 50, so a rising reading points to adulteration. The exceptions are coconut oil (38 to 39) and palm oil (39 to 40), which sit just below the milk fat range. Animal body fats read 44 to 51, overlapping the top of the legal range.
The weak spots follow from those numbers. Palm oil barely moves the BR reading. In Ramani and colleagues' laboratory study, the BR reading changed significantly only once palm oil reached 10 per cent, and the RM value alone could not establish its presence. Natural variation adds noise: the manual notes that ghee from animals fed cotton seed can have a much lower RM value, about 20, through no fraud at all. Ramani and colleagues also cite the low sensitivity of these physicochemical methods and "advancements in adulteration practices" as reasons why ghee quality is hard to establish.
What newer tests do regulators and labs use?
The newer tests look at molecules that only one kind of fat contains. Plant sterols such as β-sitosterol are absent from pure milk fat, and the fatty acid profile of ghee falls in known ranges. FSSAI has written both into the ghee standard, and research groups are testing faster instrumental methods.
The current FSSAI ghee standard requires β-sitosterol to be absent, using a reversed-phase HPLC method notified by FSSAI office order in March 2019. It also sets a fatty acid composition for ghee measured by gas chromatography, with butyric acid, for example, at 1 to 5 per cent of total fatty acids. The notification gave food businesses two years to comply with that profile.
In research, the sensitivity is higher. Ramani and colleagues found that triglyceride analysis by gas chromatography and plant sterol detection both picked up palm oil at 5 per cent, where the BR reading needed 10. Ali and colleagues spiked Egyptian buffalo and cow ghee with pork fat and reported that fatty acid profiling and FTIR (infrared) spectroscopy could signal adulteration at levels as low as 1 per cent. Both are laboratory studies on prepared samples, not surveys of market ghee, and FTIR is not yet a routine test in the Indian standard.
Why is an unusually low price a warning sign?
Because ghee is almost pure milk fat, and it takes a great deal of milk to make. The FSSAI standard requires at least 99.5 per cent milk fat, so each litre of ghee needs many litres of milk. Ghee priced as if it needed only a little milk deserves questions.
The volumes are large. Cow ghee made by separating cream takes about 20 to 23 litres of milk per litre, and curd-churned bilona ghee about 30 litres, roughly a third more. We explain why the traditional method takes more in why bilona yields so little. Vanaspati and refined oils are made from vegetable oils, not milk, so they carry none of that cost.
We are not giving a "safe" price here, because milk prices vary by region and season and any figure would date quickly. Nor is there a simple floor: dairies that make ghee from cream also sell the skimmed milk, and buffalo milk is richer in fat than cow milk. So treat a very low price as a reason to ask for the batch report, not as proof of fraud. A high price is not proof of purity either. Only a test result is.
What should you ask a ghee brand for?
Ask for a laboratory report tied to the batch code on your jar, showing at least the Baudouin test, RM value and BR reading against the FSSAI standard. Better reports add β-sitosterol and the fatty acid profile. One certificate used for every batch tells you about one sample, once.
- Check that the batch code on the report matches the one printed on the jar.
- Check that the Baudouin test reads negative.
- Check the RM value is at least 24.0 and the BR reading falls between 40.0 and 44.0.
- Look for β-sitosterol reported as absent; it can catch vegetable oils that carry no sesame marker.
- Note what the report does not cover. A report is evidence only for the tests it lists.
Every Himdhara jar carries a batch code, and the report for each batch is published on our lab reports page before the batch ships. You can hold any brand to the same standard.
The short version
Ghee is adulterated mainly with vanaspati, cheaper vegetable oils and animal body fats, sometimes with starch, colour or flavour added. The Baudouin test catches vanaspati through its compulsory sesame-oil marker, while the RM value and BR reading check that the fat is milk fat, but small blends of palm oil or body fat can slip past them. The FSSAI standard now adds β-sitosterol and fatty acid tests, and research methods such as FTIR go further. A price below what the milk would cost is a warning; a batch-coded lab report is the answer.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Chapter 2: Food Product Standards, 2.1 Dairy Products and Analogues (section 2.1.8, Standard for Milk Fat Products). Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (2015). Manual of Methods of Analysis of Foods: Milk and Milk Products. FSSAI Lab Manual 1.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Manual of Methods (rapid tests for common adulterants in milk products, oils and other foods). FSSAI.
- Ramani A, Hazra T, Tarafdar A, et al. (2025). Comprehensive Studies on Detection of Palm Oil Adulteration in Clarified Milk Fat (Ghee). International Journal of Food Science.
- Ali AH, Elbarbary A, Liu SQ, et al. (2025). Assessment of buffalo and bovine ghee authenticity using fatty acid profile analysis and FTIR spectroscopy. npj Science of Food.