Is the silvery covering on sweetmeats safe to eat?
The silvery coating is called vark, varakh or chandi-ka-vark or simply silver leaf. It is made by pounding thin strips of pure silver into ultra-thin fineness. Edible but tasteless, some say the custom of adding silver leaf to food is a carry- over of the practice of using silver in Ayurvedic medicine. But nowadays it is used more for decorative purposes and perhaps to increase the shelf life of the sweets.
Vark is perfectly safe to eat--- if it is not adulterated. Though the laws of the land do not allow it,sweetmeat manufacturers sometimes use vark that is made of impure silver, or worse, use vark that is made from aluminum. This can cause food poisoning or intestinal problems.
