Vark (also varak, varaq, waraq, or warq) is a fine filigree foil sheet of pure metal, typically silver but sometimes gold, used to decorate Indian sweets and food. The silver and gold are edible, though flavorless. Vark is made by pounding silver into sheets less than one micrometre (μm) thick, typically 0.2–0.8 μm. The silver sheets are typically packed between layers of paper for support; this paper is peeled away before use. It is fragile and breaks into smaller pieces if handled with direct skin contact. Leaf that is 0.2 μm thick tends to stick to skin if handled directly.
Vark sheets are laid or rolled over some Indian sweets, confectionery, dry fruits and spices. It is also placed onto mounds of saffron rice on platters.
For safety and ethical reasons, the Government of India has issued food safety and product standards guidelines for manufacturers of silver foil.
Particles were traditionally manually pounded between the layers of ox gut or cow hide.
Using edible silver and gold foils on sweets, confectionery and desserts is not unique to the Indian subcontinent; other regions such as Japan and Europe have also been using precious metal foils as food cover and decoration, including specialty drinks such as Goldwasser and Goldschläger.
Vegetarian ethical issues
Concerns have been raised about the ethical acceptability Since Jains and a considerable percentage of Hindus are vegetarian, this led to the decline in the usage of vark in sweets or suparis. Consequently, the Indian market for vark has mostly converted to using the machine-based vegetarian process in the making of the silver foils. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has issued guidelines for the silver leaf manufactures to adhere to regarding thickness, weight, purity, labeling and hygiene of the silver leaf. Large quantities of ingested bioactive silver can cause argyria, but the use of edible silver or gold as vark is not considered harmful to the body, since the metal is in an inert form (not ionic bioactive form), and the quantities involved in normal use are minuscule.
One study has found that about 10% of 178 foils studied from the Lucknow (India) market were made of aluminium. Of the tested foils, 46% of the samples were found to have the desired purity requirement of 99.9% silver, whereas the rest had less than 99.9% silver. All the tested Indian foils contained on average trace levels of nickel (487 ppm), lead (301 ppm), copper (324 ppm), chromium (83 ppm), cadmium (97 ppm) and manganese (43 ppm). All of these are lower than natural anthropogenic exposures of these metals; the authors suggest there is a need to address a lack of purity standards in European Union and Indian food additive grade silver.
See also
- Gilding
- Gold leaf
- Metal leaf
- Metallic dragée
- Rolling paper