WaPo: At U.S. dinner tables, food may be a fraud

[marmar]

FDA pressured to combat rising 'food fraud'

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 30, 2010


The expensive "sheep's milk" cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow's milk. And a jar of "Sturgeon caviar" was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.

Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price.

And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.

"Food fraud" has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

Such deception has been happening since Roman times, but it is getting new attention as more products are imported and a tight economy heightens competition. And the U.S. food industry says federal regulators are not doing enough to combat it. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903824.html?nav%3Dhcmodule

[Speck Tater]

1. Next time you go to KFC look at the packet of "honey" that comes with your biscuits.

It's not honey any more. It's "honey sauce" made from high fructose corn syrup and honey-like flavorings.

[Atman]

3. Next time you go to KFC, shoot yourself in the head and put yourself out of your misery

If you're eating at KFC, fake honey should be the least of your worries.

.

[Nikki Stone1]

6. ROFLMAO!!!

:rofl:

[Renew Deal]

23. I love KFC!

Nothing beats a 3 piece original (dark meat) :9

[DCKit]

2. Shit. How am I going to get rid of six tons of hummingbirg tongues in this climate? n/t

[unblock]

4. i call b.s. on labelling gallo as a "victim"

they bought plonk over more than 2 years that was passed off as a much fancier wine.

they might have been fooled at the start, but it would be grossly negligent of them to not test a single bottle over that long a period of time. chances are really good that if they were initially fooled, they decided to go along with it and reap some of the sordid benefits rather than sue and publicize a very embarassing story.

[Mind_your_head]

21. Yep

:thumbsup:

[frazzled]

5. Red snapper and "Dover sole" are often not the real thing ....

This probably won't be earth-shattering to anyone, but it is a case of "food fraud."

(Side anecdote: I was trying to buy a rump roast to cut into stewing pieces for a boeuf bourginon recipe recently. No one carries it anymore. The butcher at Whole Foods tried to convince me that top round was rump roast--same thing, just different name. I said, um, no. Nice try. It's a related cut, and I could have lived with that ... but because he lied to me, I refused to buy it and went miles away to a small butcher to buy a rump roast. Know your meat charts, and know your fish.)

[knitter4democracy]

12. Totally not the same thing.

Humph. I'm glad you took your business elsewhere--that was just messed up. We have this great country butcher that does all the small farms in the area, and I like to get my meat from there. They'd never make that kind of a mistake at all. There's a big difference when you're butchering the entire animal yourself than when you're just cutting bigger parts down.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Maple syrup at IHOP is HFCS with flavoring.

[MrsCorleone]

26. Yes. It's so sad, isn't it? My mother was shocked that a pancake house doesn't

actually serve real maple syrup.

[SoCalDem]

8. the further away from the food source you are, the more vulnerable you are

to fraud
to toxic "food"
etc.

[arcadian]

9. Not only that, but this is a good rule for shopping in grocery stores.

Everything near the walls of grocery stores, produce, meats, fresh baked breads, etc are not processed. Everything in the aisles and in the center of the grocery store is processed. Stick to the walls when you buy groceries.

[Foo Fighter]

20. You mean there are aisles?

Oh wait. Now that I think about, yes, I do have to go down an aisle to get flour for baking bread. Oh, and vitamins if I'm out. Other than that, I can find pretty much everything I need by hitting the "outer walls" of the grocery store.

Well, at least that's true until they do their annual shuffle of "moving stuff around to force consumers to check out each and every item in the store" in which case I end up having to search down every damn aisle to find the one item I'm looking for. Gawd I hate it when they do that.

[ThomThom]

10. In some peanut butter the oil is removed and a cheaper oil added

then the peanut oil is sold at a high price

[jmowreader]

16. In MOST peanut butter at least some of the peanut oil is removed!

Do you remember the "natural" peanut butter they sold in the 1970s, that had a layer of peanut oil on top of it? You were supposed to stir the oil into the peanut butter before eating it. (My aunt bought some of that, and without realizing peanut butter is supposed to have oil in it drained the peanut oil off. The shit becomes completely inedible when you do that.) These days they use vegetable oil stabilizers to keep the peanut oil in the product, and to get it in they have to remove some of the peanut oil.

The US Standards of Identity for peanut butter call for the peanut oil to be left in, but there are ways around it. I know Kroger peanut butter contains no peanut oil, because I bought some and it tastes very little like peanut butter.

[Foo Fighter]

18. And most peanut butter has HFCS added.

Peanut butter should have either one or, at most, two ingredients: dry roasted peanuts or dry roasted peanuts and salt, depending on whether or not you want the salted version. And yes, it should have a layer of oil on top. I buy Trader Joe's peanut butter and it's cheaper than that processed crap with the HFCS that other companies try to pass off as peanut butter.

[Foo Fighter]

19. And most peanut butter has HFCS added.

Peanut butter should have either one or, at most, two ingredients: dry roasted peanuts or dry roasted peanuts and salt, depending on whether or not you want the salted version. And yes, it should have a layer of oil on top. I buy Trader Joe's peanut butter and it's cheaper than that processed crap with the HFCS that other companies try to pass off as peanut butter.

[xynthee]

11. Since $multimillion companies are being victimized (financially), maybe the gov't will take action!!

Otherwise, this wouldn't even be in the news.

[Zoeisright]

13. The FDA exists in the first place because corporations put arsenic in meat

to disguise rot, added chalk to milk to make it look whiter and thicker, and put lead into margarine to give it that nice yellow color.

Looks like things haven't changed much.

[Toucano]

14. The modern economy is nothing but fraud.

No one offers a straight deal anymore.

The corporate structure removes individual responsibility, so no one feels guilty for tricking people.

You can find evidence of this in every sector of the economy.

[earth mom]

15. Corruption is rampant in the U.S. but only the little guy pays the price while the rich & powerful

get away with it-and I'm not just talking the food supply in the OP-I'm talking politicians, banksters, pharma giants, insurance industry, you name it. :grr:

[winstars]

17. At Least now the FDA

might/will do something. Read the article, Like a million other things, what the fuck you are actually buying was put on the BACKBURNER during the not Al Gore years. One of the less flashy good part of us being in is that FDA EPA blah blah agencies at least maybe do the right thing for the consumer. 8 years of pugs will fuck your safety features up it seems to me...

[Mind_your_head]

22. The thing is.....the politicians, banksters, and the pharma giant (stockholders) are PEOPLE

and they are poisoning themselves and their children just as much as they are poisoning all of us "regular" people. They're totally CLUELESS to what they are doing LONG-TERM. They don't think that way. Long-term is NOT rewarded anymore. Only very short-term, short-sighted, IMMEDIATE results and profits are rewarded. So that's what they 'do'. That's what "they" care about (for now). "They" don't see (or won't rise up to stop) the GREAT BIG TRAIN WRECK that is in the making right before their very eyes!

[hyphenate]

24. I read

over at straightdope.com that most of the "imitation" crab meat at the grocery store is some sort of eel or similar called a goki. The illo of the "fish" looked pretty nasty. Good thing I don't eat that stuff anymore!

"hoki" not goki

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2914/whats-better-farm-raised-salmon-or-wild

[Incitatus]

25. I wonder how much food from China is coming into the US with a fake country of origin. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

27. Interesting book ... "The Billionaire's Vinegar" ... ***SPOILER***

supposedly very old vintages of wine were actually newer wine in old bottles (thus perverting a cliche) but buyers/tasters were convinced they were getting to sample a preciously rare treat, so tasted what they wanted to, or were reluctant to complain.

Check out the origin of the term "con game" sometime.