Adulterated Olive Oil, Honey and More: "FDA doesn't have resources" to stop it

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

I'm addicted to a site called consumerist.com where they report on all kinds of scams and outrages against consumers, including what they call the "Grocery Shrink Ray" - packaging that gets smaller and smaller while the price stays the same.

Now the media is reporting on another kind of shrinkage: olive oil diluted with soybean oil, and honey that's really HFCS.

-snip-

Connecticut tests olive oils for purity and said that it found some that were up to 90 percent soybean oil. Tests show off-brands from discount stores are the biggest problem.

"Name-brand companies generally have more of a quality control operation," Consumer Reports food safety expert Jean Halloran said. "Some of the products in dollar stores are here today and gone tomorrow."

Products like honey and maple syrup are also among the counterfeit culprits. According to the FDA, producers have been caught adding corn syrup, cane sugar or beet sugar to honey to drop the cost.

-snip-

"If a product like a pure maple syrup is priced so low that the differential is so different than other similar competing brands, then you probably should be suspicious. The FDA doesn't have the resources to enforce the law," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6706035&page=1

At least this isn't a scam on the order of tainted milk. These products won't kill you. But you eat olive oil and honey because it's healthier, you risk being deprived of those benefits by unscrupulous producers, and there's apparently little the government can do to prevent it.

Caveat emptor.

[SoCalNative]

1. "At least this isn't a scam on the order of tainted milk. These products won't kill you."

According to a similar report I heard a couple of weeks ago on NPR, some of the cheapie olive oil was tested and was found to be almost 90% peanut oil.

So yes, it could kill some people who are allergic to peanuts.

[Lucinda]

10. I'm actually supposed to avoid all soy products AND i'm allergic to peanuts

Guess I need to grow my own olives now?

[Emit]

21. Excellent point

We read, too, a while back that some brands of olive oil were tested and found to be diluted with peanut oil. My son is allergic to peanuts as you are - it could be deadly! This scares me, as we use a lot of olive oil.

[Lucinda]

24. My bottle is labeled 100% and I havent had any problems

but its very scary! I'm going to be cautious about ever changing brands.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

12. That's bad. Stay away from dollar store private label brands.

[Taverner]

2. The question is whether they are mislabeling or not

Go to KFC, and ask for "honey" and they will give you a packet that reads "honey flavored spread." Not illegal. But if the bottles are labeled "honey" or the ingredients say "honey" but really have HFCS - then we have a broken law and this needs to be prosecuted.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. They have all the resources necessary to go after people who

rightfully inform you that various natural supplement products prevent disease. Imagine that.

[TZ]

15. wrong

They don't have enough money to go after shysters and snake oil salesmen that tell you a sugar pill will cure cancer. Oh wait I forgot. I cured cancer and am conspiring with my biotech to hide it from the world..:sarcasm:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. Wow, that didn't take long, away with you.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19139007?ordinalpos=12&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum


1: Cancer Prev Res (Phila Pa). 2008 Dec;1(7):568-76.Links
Dose-dependent inhibition of tobacco smoke carcinogen-induced lung tumorigenesis in A/J mice by indole-3-carbinol.
Kassie F, Matise I, Negia M, Upadhyaya P, Hecht SS.

Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware Street Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. [e-mail]

These results clearly show the efficacy of I3C in the prevention of tobacco carcinogen-induced lung tumorigenesis in A/J mice and provide a basis for future evaluation of this compound in clinical trials as a chemopreventive agent for current and former smokers.

[Two Americas]

30. not helpful

It is not helpful, and this issue is far to vital and complex, to create a false dichotomy and play dueling talking points over.

[corpseratemedia]

4. hopefully this will change with our new legitimate administration

[aquart]

5. Clearly we need to add many jobs in the area of inspection.

These will be American jobs for Americans. Something we need which will employ Americans and HELP Americans. Say, 2000 to start?

[Cleita]

6. IF the FDA doesn't have enough resources, it seems like a good place to

start creating jobs in the Obama administration.

[Two Americas]

29. yes

We also need to stop the flood of unregulated and uninspected food coming across the border.

We also need to get rid of the political operatives, pulled from the corporations they are supposed to be regulating, and return the control of the agencies to the impartial professionals dedicated to the well being of the public, not to the profits of the corporations and the health of their stock on Wall Street.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Yeah, but you know if it was a cancer grannie smoking weed there'd be no shortage of resources

devoted by the previous administration to "stopping" it.

And they didn't seem to come up short in the manpower department when they needed to keep plan B contraception off the shelves. If people had only been using the olive oil to prevent pregnancy or to get high, the Bush Administration would have been all over it.

Hopefully, now, we can get some sanity.

[cali]

8. Vermont is rigorous about testing maple syrup

you can get in real trouble here for aduterating syrup.

[Two Americas]

31. true

Vermont is a stellar example of effective regulation and inspection. Elsewhere, budget cuts in state health and agriculture departments have virtually eliminated testing and inspection.

[tsuki]

32. I buy only Vermont maple syrup. It's costly, and it's a treat. nt

[WhiteTara]

9. plus soybeans are almost all GMO

so you are getting a double whammy

[DCKit]

18. Every single time I eat anything made with GMO soybeans or corn....

(well over 80% of the market for both is now GMO), I am rewarded with what could politely be called "violent intestinal disruption." My only other allergies or sensativities are to chemicals.

[WhiteTara]

27. my chemical sensitivites

keep my nose running and my sinus' inflamed almost all the time.

[Two Americas]

11. very frustrating

I work with small fruit growers, who are selling real food. They are under so much pressure, so much regulation and oversight, yet hucksters in the "food product industry" can sell adulterated food with such impunity. The FDA has gone after fruit growers for merely distributing government sponsored research on the health benefits of eating fruit and threatened to shut them down. One honest and relatively harmless mistake puts the farmer out of business. But the hucksters can move fast, refine their intentional scams, and then buy their way out of trouble and move on to the next scam.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

19. sounds like you're doing good work

I noticed this same thing this past summer - I was looking up sites about fruit for some reason, and I think it was a cherry grower who listed a number of benefits with a lot of protective disclaimers about where the information came from, and how they weren't saying anything that the FDA wasn't saying. Your post explains why.

[Two Americas]

28. the FDA

The FDA is corrupted beyond belief, and does virtually no work to protect the public. However, they have repeatedly gone after small fruit, nut and vegetable growers. They have no business there, since the USDA is where all of the agriculture professionals are.

A recent example was their smear campaign against tomatoes, when they had not tested even one tomato. Turns out the problem was not with tomatoes, and was coming from Mexico where inspection and regulation is woefully inadequate and corrupt, and there is virtually no inspection as it comes across the border. Tomato growers here were badly damaged, and millions of tons of perfectly good food were thrown away. The growers in Mexico were not hurt, nor were the companies bringing in substandard produce (US corporations). The FDA refused to inform the public that the problem was with imported food.

With fruit, the FDA decided that since fruit was beneficial to health, that made them a drug, and then accused growers of selling an untested and unregulated drug. I kid you not. That is what they told the growers. What they told the public was that growers were making false health claims - that is not what they charged the growers with.

The pharmaceutical companies have an agenda here - to suppress public knowledge of health benefits from natural foods. Wall Street has an agenda as well - eliminate family farms, which are an obstacle to exploitation of rural resources and domination of the food industry by a handful of corporations. The Bush administration placed people into the federal agencies who were right out of the industries they were supposed to be regulating, and they have been using the agencies to advance the desires and interests of the corporations they came from.

We should all be pressuring the new administration to restore and strengthen the public agricultural infrastructure, to increase inspection and regulation, and increase funding for agricultural research, and NOT to give grants and tax breaks to Wall Street to "develop" farm land as they have been talking about doing. Food is a public resource, not a "free market" commodity and if the energy industry or the "food products" industry gets any more leverage on farming then they already have, it will be the death of farming and that will mean untold risks and dangers to the public.

The network of family farms, and their security on the farm, and the land grant colleges, and the regulatory and inspection and research infrastructure are all there for the purpose of ensuring safe, sustainable farming, and affordable, safe and healthy food to the public. They are not there for the purpose of the few to make a killing on Wall Street. When it comes to feeding the public, or making a profit - and that is what it is coming down to now - feeding the public must be the priority, not the few making money on the stock market. If it comes down to food or energy - as is happening with the Ethanol insanity - then food must come first.

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. Real Maple syrup and virgin olive oil is something I can really taste

It sure would have been nice is the reporter had called out the brands
that have been fraudulent.

[lildreamer316]

14. It's really, really easy to find local honey here anyway.

I would have no excuse for buying it in the store.

[bvar22]

17. BIG K&R.

The whole Corporate Food Production & Delivery System can't be trusted.
My Wife & I feels so strongly about this issue that in 2006 we moved to a very rural/unpolluted part of the US to produce our own food.

Honey was a big issue.
We began noticing that store-bought honey tasted like Caro Syrup.
We were right.
We now keep our own organic hives, and only eat 100% pure honey from our hives.


The Farmers Market can't be trusted either.
Some of the produce at a common Farmers Market WILL contain MORE Pesticides and Herbicides than produce from a commercial Factory Farm.....even if they swear their stuff is organic/pesticide free.
(Too many people will tell you what you want to hear if it means they can make a dollar....even at the Farmers Market)

The only way to know for sure is to grow your own.

[G_j]

20. thanks for the heads up

consumerist.com

interesting stuff

[NashVegas]

22. Yeah, It Is

[arcadian]

23. There goes my weekend.

:D

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

26. glad I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that

:rofl:

[surrealAmerican]

25. I remember reading months ago about olive oil ...

... being routinely mixed with other oils. It seems the companies selling it here buy it from distributors who pass all manor of oil off as "olive oil". Even the major brands have problems.

[Norrin Radd]

33. Get the olive oil from Trader Joes.

It actually tastes like the stuff from Italy, Greece, and Spain.

[femmedem]

34. 1-888-723-3366

From the link, that's the number to call to inquire about a specific product.

Thank you for posting this. I make olive oil based soap for a living and it had better not be soybean oil based. :(

[catgirl]

35. I buy raw honey and Vermont maple syrup

But I have had weak tasting olive oil recently. It definitely didn't taste pure. Thanks for sharing
this site with us.