Sweets foiled by silver
Sweets foiled by silver beware, the next time you consume sweets coated in silver foil: the decoration is a source of harmful metals. While the amount of the foil ingested through sweets is very small, it still is a health threat. An estimated 275,000 kilogrammes of silver are annually turned into edible silver foil each year by small-scale manufacturers in the country.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act of 1954 (pfa) prescribes that food-grade foil should be at least 99.9 per cent silver. But this leaves an unspecified margin of 0.1 per cent or 1,000 microgramme (