Food Fraud: What Are You Really Eating?
May 04, 2013
Story at-a-glance
-
The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention's (USP) Food Fraud Database
contains more than 1,300 records of food fraud published from
1980 to 2010
-
A recent update, which added in cases from 2011 and 2012,
increased the number of records by 60 percent, or nearly 800 new
records, and includes some foods you may eat everyday, like
olive oil, honey, fish and orange juice
-
Food fraud, in which foods are intentionally diluted with other
ingredients or misrepresented on the label, is common among
milk, spices, fruit juice, seafood and oils
-
Whole, unprocessed foods – ideally purchased from a local
farmer, farmer’s market or food coop – are those that will be
best for your health as well as least vulnerable to fraud
By Dr. Mercola
When you order sushi at your favorite restaurant or pick up a
pound of coffee from your local supermarket, you assume you’re
getting the red snapper or Columbian beans as stated on the menu
or label.
But not so fast. A growing number of cases of “food fraud”
are occurring in the United States, such that you may not be
able to tell what you’re really eating just by looking at the
label.
Worse still, most of these cases are not highly publicized
incidents like the recent scandal of UK supermarkets selling
“beef” burgers that actually contained horse and pig meat.
Instead, they’re ongoing cases of blatant misrepresentation
among some incredibly common foods.
What Is Food Fraud?
Food fraud, defined as “the deliberate substitution,
addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food, food
ingredients or food packaging, or false or misleading statements
made about a product for economic gain,”1
is the focus of the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention's (USP) Food
Fraud Database,2
which already has more than 1,300 records of food fraud
published from 1980 to 2010.
A recent update, which added in cases from 2011 and 2012,
increased the number of records by 60 percent, or
nearly 800 new records, and includes some foods you very well
may eat every day, like olive oil, honey, seafood and orange
juice.
In some cases, the foods were diluted with ingredients not
listed on the label. In others, the food was something entirely
different than it claimed to be.
Still others contained undisclosed “clouding agents,”
including the cancer-causing, reproductive-system-damaging
plasticizer Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which was added
to fruit juices in order to make them appear freshly squeezed.
USP found that 877 food products from 315 different companies
contained fake clouding agents.
In every case, the food fraud revealed that what you think
you’re eating may be far from reality, and the manipulation of
food and food ingredients may be far more widespread than anyone
realized. Dr. Jeffrey Moore, senior scientific liaison for USP,
explained:3
"While food fraud has been around for centuries, with
a handful of notorious cases well documented, we suspect
that what we know about the topic is just the tip of the
iceberg.”
The 10 Most Common Fraudulent Foods
1. Olive Oil
Even “extra virgin” olive oil is often diluted with other
less expensive oils, including hazelnut, soybean, corn,
sunflower, palm, sesame, grape seed and walnut.
2. Milk
Milk was found to contain vegetable oil, whey, caustic
soda, cane sugar, detergent and even toxic compounds like
melamine and formaldehyde.
3. Honey
Honey is often not “honey” but instead a mix of
high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose syrup, invert beet sugar,
water and essential oils.
4. Saffron
It’s the world’s most expensive spice, but it often
contains adulterants such as glycerin, sandalwood dust,
tartrazine (yellow dye), barium sulfate, borax, marigold
flowers and even colored corn strings.
5. Orange Juice
Lemon juice, sugar water, paprika extract, marigold
flower extract, and a synthetic sugar/acid mixture may all
be lurking in your favorite orange juice.
6. Coffee
Coffee, whether ground or instant, is a likely source of
hidden “ingredients” like roasted corn, ground parchment,
barley, coffee twigs, potato flower, malt, chicory and
caramel.
7. Apple Juice
This childhood favorite may contain corn syrup, raisin
sweetener, malic acid, beet sugar and other juices, such as
grape, pineapple, pear and fig.
8. Tea
Hiding inside your tea bag may be sand, sawdust, starch,
China clay, used tea leaves and color additives. Some tea
bags, meanwhile, are made with plastic, such as nylon,
thermoplastic, PVC or polypropylene. While these plastics
have high melting points, the temperature at which the
molecules in polymers begin to break down is always lower
than the melting point, which could allow the bags to leach
compounds of unknown health hazards into your tea when
steeped in boiling water.
Even paper tea bags are frequently treated with
epichlorophydrin, which hydrolyzes to 3-MCPD when contact
with water occurs. 3-MCPD is a carcinogen associated with
food processing that has also been implicated in infertility
and suppressed immune function.
9. Fish
Seafood fraud is actually very widespread, as according
to the nonprofit ocean protection group Oceana,4
nearly 60 percent of fish labeled "tuna" in the US is not
actually tuna. A shocking 84 percent of “white tuna” sold in
sushi venues was actually escolar, a fish associated with
acute and serious digestive effects if you eat just a couple
of ounces.
One-third of all fish samples tested across the US were
found to be mislabeled, substituted for cheaper, less
desirable and/or more readily available fish varieties. For
instance, 87 percent of fish sold as snapper was actually
some other type of fish, and the USP found that monkfish was
sometimes actually puffer fish, which can also cause
poisoning.
10. Black Pepper
This spice is often adulterated with juniper berries,
papaya seeds, starch, buckwheat flour and millet seeds.
Other foods that made frequent appearances in the fraudulent
food database include:
Turmeric |
Chili powder |
Cooking oil |
Shrimp |
Lemon juice |
Maple syrup |
Reading Food Labels Is No Longer Enough to Ensure Healthful Food
It seems quite clear at this point that food fraud is on the
rise, and while many have started reading food labels, those
labels are increasingly being found to be less than truthful.
Even if your food is not being illegally diluted with
undisclosed adulterants (or being misrepresented as a different
food entirely), many corporations hire lawyers to carefully
craft words that are just barely on the side of being legal.
Each of the following label items are often used in deceptive
ways that may lead you to buy a product you'd otherwise avoid:
- Vitamin and mineral claims
- The "All Natural" label
- The "Organic" label
- Misleading nutritional facts
- Dangerous ingredients not required to be listed on any
food label
For instance, labels like "all-natural" and "organic" can
also be sorely misleading. The first means virtually nothing
when it comes to processed foods, and the only organic label
worth paying attention to is the USDA Organic seal. Nutritional
facts, meanwhile, can be off by up to 20 percent before breaking
any regulations, and currently you have no way of knowing if a
food contains genetically modified ingredients as labeling is
not required.
While reading labels on the products you buy is important,
when it comes to food, you're far better off limiting or
eliminating foods that require extensive labeling or listing of
ingredients in the first place. Whole foods – the kind that have
little to no labeling at all – are those that will be best for
your health as well as least vulnerable to fraud.
Tips for Avoiding Food Fraud and Finding Safe, Healthful Foods
If you value food safety and authenticity, you'll want to get
your produce, meat, chickens, eggs and dairy from smaller
community farms with free-ranging animals, organically fed and
locally marketed. This is the way food has been raised and
distributed for centuries ...
The closer your foods are to the way they’re found in nature,
and the closer you are to the actual source of your food, the
greater your changes of finding pure, unadulterated food for
your family. When you buy the bulk of your food from a local
farmer or community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, you can
get to know the person who is supplying your food and even ask
questions about its growing conditions.
This way, when you pick up a gallon of, preferably raw, milk
or a jar of honey, you’ll know it’s pure and exactly as it’s
being represented. Most people should be able to find a farmer’s
market, local farm or CSA in their area (see the infographic
below for resources), but in the event you’re still buying some
of your food at chain supermarkets, the following tips can help
you to find REAL food:
- Choose food in the least processed form possible, such
as lemons instead of bottled lemon juice and whole black
pepper or coffee beans in lieu of ground
- When buying fish, purchase the whole fish whenever
possible, which makes it more difficult to switch species.
Also, if the price seems too low, it’s probably because
you’re buying a different fish than is actually on the label
- Stick with stores and brands that you know and trust;
while not a foolproof strategy, natural food stores
generally have a better track record than big box stores or
chain supermarkets
If you want to learn more about the types of food fraud that
may be impacting foods you commonly eat, you can both search the
USP database and report fraud directly at
www.foodfraud.org.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/04/food-fraud.aspx
|