Food Fraud - scary!!

[tikitavi]

Just read this article on Yahoo on how food may be tainted, or not even what it is labeled to be!

shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/880/8-food-frauds-on-your-shopping-list/

Some of the more scary examples:

"Olive Oil
Accounting for 16% of the database's recorded cases, olive oil is the food most subject to fraud, according to the Journal of Food Sciences study....In one of the more famous cases, more than 600 people in Spain died in 1981 after consuming "olive oil" that was actually a non-food-grade rapeseed oil intended as an industrial lubricant."

"Milk
Adulterated milk is typically watered down and then laced with melamine, which increases the protein content to hide the dilution, Spink says. The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was the most high-profile incident, with the resulting outbreak killing six infants and sickening more than 300,000 consumers."

"Spices
There's ample fraud opportunity in expensive goods that are purchased in small quantities and used in small doses as it's unlikely one's using enough to notice something isn't quite right, Spink says. Saffron represents 5% of food fraud cases and vanilla extract, 2%. Turmeric, star anise, paprika and chili powder each account for another 1%."

"Alcohol
Fake vodkas in particular have made the news in recent months, with contaminants such as anti-freeze and other dangerous chemicals."

"Fish
"It's easy to sell a piece of fish as one species when in reality it's another species," says Kircher. Farmed fish also get advertised as more expensive wild versions. Sometimes, it gets even more creative than a simple mislabel. Scallops, for example, might actually be punched out circles from a whitefish fillet, she says. "

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Frightening!!

[charlie]

The trouble is, there are always "research" groups who like to scaremonger about foods.

The best policy is to source your foods properly and avoid "cheap" substitute foods as much as possible.

[ukbill]

Yes but most olive oil for sale in the shops is diluted with hazelnut oil for example.

Some research done by the EU indicated that there is an awful lot more olive oil for sale than can possibly come from the amount of olive trees growing in the EU.

Which is scary because there is a well known fraud going on.

Growers of olive trees get an EU grant for the number of trees they harvest. So there is a huge market for cardboard trees (I kid you not!). So the inspector is not going to walk round mile after mile of olive trees in the hot afternoon.. so they look at them using binoculars and "estimate" the number..

In some parts of Italy there are over 40% more olive trees claiming EU grant than there is physical ground area to grow them on!

And yet there is more olive oil being sold than can be possibly produced by the already inflated number of olive oil trees.. somewhere what is produced is being diluted by a lot of "other oils"