Food Fraud

[jennyema]

I think there was a discussion about fake honey here recently.

Here’s a short Food and Wine magazine article about food fraud in general.

Food Fraud Is Booming — and It’s Reaching Your Grocery Cart

Food fraud is easy to miss because it often involves familiar foods rather than obvious fakes. Items can be diluted, substituted, or mislabeled while still looking perfectly legitimate on store shelves. All told, experts estimate it costs the global economy as much as $40 billion a year — and...

www.foodandwine.com

 

[pictonguy]

As a chef and someone fully engaged in nutrition I've been aware of this pretty much from the beginning of my career. The one that really hit home was in 1981 in Spain, which produces the most olive oil where an adulterated rape seed oil was sold as olive oil which exposed lots of people to a condition known as (TOS) toxic oil syndrome with over 5000 people die as a result.

There's literally hundreds of products that fall under this category and it's one of the reasons along with my nutritional knowledge that I support ad nauseum for a whole food diet, organic where possible and local when also possible and to research any product like olive oil to make sure your getting what they say they're delivering.

Here's my recommendation for a decent everyday olive oil.

 

[HeyItsSara]

My nutritionist say to only use Chosen brand oil and mayonnaise.

 

[caseydog]

Fake honey is possibly the most common food fraud. Put HFCS with some artificial flavoring in a bear shaped plastic bottle, and call it honey.

As for olive oil, you have to watch for blends of olive oil and other plant oils. Blends of olive oil made from olives from multiple countries is not a problem. That is done to maintain a consistent flavor. The same is done with orange juice. Whether olives or oranges, every harvest from one source can easily be different, so blending from multiple sources can maintain a more consistent flavor.

I mostly cook with avocado oil, but I use HEB store brand EVOO. It is a blend, but it is all EVOO. YouTube chef Joshua Weismann uses the same EVOO.

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

HFCS

I know I have seen before but right now?... nope, what are you trying to say? Are those letters written on the ingredients list?

 

[RavingLunatic]

My guess is High Fructose Corn Syrup.

 

[dragnlaw]

Ah yes, thank you Raving!

 

[caseydog]

My guess is High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Yes. I thought everyone would know that, but it is apparently not well known in the dragon community.

CD

 

[Shining Wizard]

Fish and seafood are often mislabeled. Usually it’s a less than scrupulous vendor passing off items as one thing when they are clearly another. Most commonly fraudulent is origin. Ramsay was doing one of his shows and they were in Maine, selling Maine lobster from Canada.
San Marzano tomatoes now have DOC, as does cheeses and wines, which helps but is only scratching the surface.

 

[dragnlaw]

At my age other dragons call me a newbie. So, yeah, I guess as a newbie and ergo a newbie to the cooking world as well, I and probably some other newbies, can't always remember AUBIF.

 

[In A Pickle]

Fish and seafood are often mislabeled. Usually it’s a less than scrupulous vendor passing off items as one thing when they are clearly another. Most commonly fraudulent is origin. Ramsay was doing one of his shows and they were in Maine, selling Maine lobster from Canada.
San Marzano tomatoes now have DOC, as does cheeses and wines, which helps but is only scratching the surface.

Yep fish is one of the most fraudulent and illegally sourced items.
That surprised me.
One out of five fish is the product of criminal activity and illegally caught.
Scallops, lobster and red snapper are near the top of the list.
One study showed 40% of fish was mislabelled!

 

[Gone Hiking]

I wasn't aware that honey was faked, but fake olive oil has been an issue for decades. All you can really hope, I think, is to spend the money on name brands. Mislabeled fish is another issue I commonly see. All too often, I see farm raised salmon being sold as "wild caught", but you can tell at a glance that it is not.

 

[pictonguy]

I wasn't aware that honey was faked, but fake olive oil has been an issue for decades. All you can really hope, I think, is to spend the money on name brands. Mislabeled fish is another issue I commonly see. All too often, I see farm raised salmon being sold as "wild caught", but you can tell at a glance that it is not.
View attachment 79383

I'm not saying you don't have a point because you do, but the wild example and because it's so lean it's probably sockeye salmon, one of the leanest of the wild Pacific salmons and suspect it's a loin cut as well, where the farmed Atlantic is without a doubt from the lower belly area, where it's mostly fat as it easily illustrates. If a loin cut of say Farmed Atlantic is compared to say King or Coho wild Alaskan salmon the difference is almost negligible.

This of course doesn't negate your claim that farmed salmon isn't sold as wild caught because that is done all the time, it's just the way they went about it that I find dishonest and they really didn't need to be this disingenuous because this was formulated to deceive and was approved.

 

[dragnlaw]

I was also under the impression that 'wild' salmon was only available once (or twice?) a year.
@Gone Hiking are you referring to their colour? They all have different ranges of colour from white, pink, coral and that deep, deep red.

 

[medtran49]

If the price seems too good to be true, you need to check the back label. We found some frozen crawfish tails once at a really, really good price. They were prominently labeled on the front as Breaux Bridge, a known good area for crawfish. Yeah, they were from Breaux Bridge. They were shipped there from China, then packaged in Breaux Bridge.

 

[caseydog]

If the price seems too good to be true, you need to check the back label. We found some frozen crawfish tails once at a really, really good price. They were prominently labeled on the front as Breaux Bridge, a known good area for crawfish. Yeah, they were from Breaux Bridge. They were shipped there from China, then packaged in Breaux Bridge.

I had that same experience with crawfish tail meat. I don't recall the brand, but it was a Louisiana brand, and from the front of the package, one would think it was from Louisiana. I almost bought it, but checked the back. Sure enough, it was from somewhere in Asia.

The price test works for shrimp, too. Wild caught Gulf shrimp here is noticeably higher priced than farmed shrimp from SE Asia.

CD

 

[Shining Wizard]

Here in Australia, we have the same problem with prawns. If they claim to be from the top end, it normally means they’re from Indonesia.
Same with barramundi.
In fact, if you buy any seafood in a frozen package, it’s usually from Indonesia regardless of how it’s labeled. It’s sneaky because the manufacturer will use a deceptive brand name like “Territory” or “Reef Water” which conjures up an Australian region but close inspection reveals a SE Asian product.

 

[RavingLunatic]

I just returned a bag of frozen shrimp from Waterfront from Indonesia, they were contaminated with radioactive or something.

 

[caseydog]

I just returned a bag of frozen shrimp from Waterfront from Indonesia, they were contaminated with radioactive or something.

Polluted water leads to polluted seafood.

CD

 

[dcSaute]

for USA consumers (only?) . . .
the USDA has decided that fish/seafood/etc 'wild caught' - the country of origin shall be the country in which the 'boat' is registered.

it is not only possible, but proven, than Chinese shrimpers operating/catching shrimp in the Gulf of . . . Mexico/America...? must be declared as Product of China.

tuna/salmon(whatever) harvested by (any foreign country...) in any area gets labeled as product of xxxx - which is not really where the fish comes from . . .