Taste booster: Hing has been a part of the Indian kitchen for ages

A small pinch of hing, as we all know, adds taste and aroma to everyday cooking. For ages, this little pinch has held Indian cuisine in sway. Evidently, asafoetida, i.e. hing, holds an unchallenged place in Indian kitchens, canteens, catering houses, restaurants and fast food outlets as it is also an excellent preservative.

Today, it is available in four forms — powder, semi-solid, solid, and granular — with the price varying from Rs 16 to Rs 75 per 100 gm.

With ample brands crowding the Indian market today, Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS), Ahmedabad, tested 17 brands to help you choose the best. The testing involved looking into many issues pertaining to the different forms of hing, such as the extent of alcoholic extract in compounded hing and the moisture content. CERS also tested whether the samples met the parametres of the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, Agmark, the Weights and Measures Act and Rules and the labelling information. Finally, the brands were tested for the flavour or the pungency that hing adds to food. The flavour depends on the actual quantity of raw hing used in the product.

Brand expectations

To find out the pungency of hing and its quality, CERS tested it for its actual hing content — technically known as alcoholic extract. The test found that Ramdev Premium, Cycle, Parth, Badshah and Gopal have the maximum pungency.

Compounded hing with pungency lower than the specified limits can be termed “substandard”. Nine of the 17 brands of hing tested failed to meet the requirements of minimum pungency. The lowest pungency was found in Krishna 755 (1.1). P.C. and N.S. had fungus and did not smell like hing, so they were not tested for pungency. After all, whatever be the pungency, no one would prefer to add hing that’s infected with fungus to the food. Avoid these brands.

Brands such as Ramdev Premium, Cycle, Parth, Badshah and Gopal had pungency levels of 9.1, 7.6, 7.2, 6.5 and 6.5 per cent, respectively. So, it’s safe to use these brands. They may be priced higher but buying cheaper ones may prove costlier. The two loose (unbranded) ones CERS tested proved to be more desirable to consumers in providing the best quality. They had 11.5 and 9.5 per cent of raw hing in their compound.

Do you pay for moisture?

Generally, compounded hing is available in dry, free-flowing powder form. Moisture not only decreases the shelf life of the hing but, at the manufacturing stage, also results in loss of actual weight of the hing and, of course, inflates the manufacturers’ pocket.

CERS tested hing for moisture against the prescribed standards (the maximum permissible limit is 12 per cent). Laljee Godhoo (L.G.) — a very old and well-known brand from south India — had 18.9 and 13.9 per cent moisture in its semi-solid and powder form, respectively. P.C. had 17.4 per cent and N.S. had 19.3 per cent of moisture in it. So as a consumer, you lose on weight and shelf life with brands like L.G., N.S. and P.C.

Clean chit

None of us would like to consume hing that includes foreign matter or rodent contaminants. The presence of these in hing hints at unhygienic production conditions. To find this out, CERS conducted “total ash” and “acid insoluble ash” tests.

Rodents seemed to have had their day out at the Majithia production site as rodent contamination was found in it. Foreign matter was found in P.C. and N.S. brands, which had also been contaminated by insect and fungus attacks.

Manufacturers’ responses

As a policy, CERS conveys the test results to all the manufacturers. All manufacturers receive the results of their own product only and are given two weeks from the date of receipt to respond. While CERS stands by all its results, here are the manufacturers’ responses.

R.M. Kanani & Co., the manufacturers of Laxmi Brand, contended that they “regularly analyse their products in government & private labs and take steps accordingly”. They claimed they work according to government-prescribed parameters.

Annapurna sent CERS a report from Gujarat Laboratories, Ahmedabad, certifying that there was 6.52 per cent of alcoholic extract in their product. They said that the wheat flour quantity used in their product is clearly labelled and had no comments to make on the test results that show more starch. The manufacturers also said that the low weight of the packets might be due to variations in the weight of the container of the product and / or as a result of the negligence of the weighing staff.

P.C. Company, the manufacturers of the P.C. brand, refused to accept any deficiency in their product. “The test method for asafoetida and compounded asafoetida varies” and their lab tests their products as per the specifications of the PFA Act. They said “the lot tested was of September 2005 and had been tested 22 months after packing, which might have reduced the weight by a gram or two and is acceptable by the Standards of Weight and Measurement Act”.

In respect of CERS’ test report showing excess moisture content (17.4 per cent versus a maximum permissible limit of 12 per cent), they said that the sample for the test must be dried and hardened, which CERS had not done. So their test results were incorrect. Further, the manufacturers said that microbial growth appears in all types of wet products owing to climatic conditions and non-maintenance of stock at places. They also requested CERS to send them a test sample so that they could check its originality.

Laljee Godhoo & Co., the manufacturers of the L.G. brand, were “doubtful about the genuineness of the product” in the light of the fake product problem faced by them for the past several years. They promised to send us reports of Italabs Laboratory, Mumbai, on their product and wanted to visit CERS’s office.

On their visit and inspection, they confirmed the genuineness of the product but said in their response, “We do not agree with your report on our product and, according to our Italabs Laboratory reports, our products conform to the limits prescribed in the PFA Act that does not prescribe any moisture content.”

Parth Food Products, the manufacturers of the Parth brand, said that as per the PFA Act, they declare 30 per cent wheat flour content on the label. The Act does not provide for the per cent of edible gum and starch (68 per cent, according to the test) to be declared on the label. They requested a detailed analytical procedure to estimate the starch content. In respect of the findings that four samples weighed less than 100 gm (as labelled), the manufacturers enquired whether CERS had taken the average statistical weight of 32 samples in finding out the lacuna in weights.

The manufacturers of Ramdev Premium, Ramdev Super, Badshah Deluxe, Krishna, N.S., Huns, Majithia, Rasmati Bambino, Cycle and Gopal had not responded till the time of going to press despite reminders.

Score card

Out of the 100-point score, Ramdev Premium topped the test among the powder hing, securing 69. Parth followed with 59. CERS recommends Ramdev Premium and Parth as the “best buys”.

In the solid form, Cycle scored the highest (56). All brands of hing in semi-solid form failed the CERS test.

In the granule category, CERS recommends Gopal as the “best buy”.

There were some brands that scored less than what one could imagine. L.G. (powder) scored 4 out of 100, Krishna 755 and L.G. (semi-solid) scored 1.2 and (-1.5)!

For more information write to cerc@cercindia.org