Can't a girl just get honey when she buys honey? Apparently not. Food fraud ("the adulteration, dilution or mislabeling of goods" as defined by the FDA) is on the rise, with olive oil, milk, saffron, honey and coffee topping the list of food items most likely to have fudged ingredients or sourcing information.
The most recent study on food fraud from the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention reports that in addition to the foods listed above, the other foods most likely to have fraudulent ingredients or elements include fish, tea, maple syrup, turmeric, black pepper and chili pepper.
What does it mean to be a fraudulent food? It means that the food in question has fillers or other substances in it other than what it was specified on the label. For example, an expensive spice might have less-expensive fillers added to it; extra virgin olive oil could be diluted with cheaper vegetable oils. And that pomegranate juice? Not 100% pomegranate, but more likely a mix of "grape skins and grape and pear juices," according to Eatocracy, who reported on the study. They offer their own tips to combat food fraud, which are worth checking out.
Read More: Faux pas! Food fraud on the rise | Eatocracy
In general, the best way to combat food fraud is to know your food source and supplier, if not for everything then especially for the high-target foods.
What do you think about this? Will it change how you shop for olive oil and honey? For spices and tea?
Related: The Great Olive Oil Scam. Don't Be Duped.
(Image: oksix/Shutterstock)
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Interesting. In Europe you get mostly lied about the origin (Italian olive oil is mostly from Spain or North Africa, but can be labelled "Italian" if it has been bottled there). And a lot of "organic" food, especially from Italy, is not organic at all. But I'm pretty sure you couldn't dilute olive oil or honey, there are too many tests.
I learned about fraudulent honey about a year ago, first here on TK and then did some more research. Since then I buy only raw, local honey from the farmer's market in the summer or in bulk from a local beekeeper to last through the winter. It's something I should have been doing anyway, for obvious reasons, but that piece of news just kicked my butt into doing it sooner, higher costs be damned.
The photo used for this article suggests that Trader Joe's products are fraudulent. If that's not the case, I would choose a different image.
yeah why did you use trader joes products for this?
Yes, what's with the TJ's disrespect. You could have turned the bottles around so the labels weren't visible.
This is really interesting. I always read that olive oil was "better" if it had a greener tint to it...and I found out that many companies are adding food coloring to olive oils to trick people into thinking they are higher quality. AND they don't have to put it on the label.
Maria Tadic
http://beanafoodie.com/blog
To my mind, it is a capital sin to buy the listed items in this articles in regular supermarkets - even at Whole Food and Trade Joe's. One should always goes to specialized stores. To those that buy those products in the supermarket, well, I don't feel sorry for them.
Lima, you forget that not everyone lives in an area where going to a specialty store is possible. And there's nothing keeping those specialty stores or small local sources from padding their products, either. Fraud is fraud, so let's not blame the victim here.
Hey all! No disrespect for TJ's. To avoid confusion, we'll swap out the image.
Lima, I think you're also forgetting that not everybody can afford the luxury of high-end grocery shopping. And I agree with ScuttledCuttle as well - who's to say that the specialty shops aren't selling the same fraudulent items?
Lima, not everyone can afford (money or time-wise) to shop at specialty stores. Let's not blame the proletariat for the sins of the capitalists. This is not about people making bad buying decisions. This is about people making bad selling decisions.
Lima, we'll all be sure to hit up our local milk specialty store. What on earth are you talking about?
I signed into TK specifically to reply to Lima and I see I am not the only one who did. To "not feel sorry" for people who buy products that are REGULATED by rules and laws to be safe and authentic is incredibly short-sighted (I'll be polite here, because I love this website and the respectful nature of the comments on it). That's all fine and well for you, who can go to the specialty store to buy all your special foods while those thoughtless people stupidly shop at their supermarket, for whatever variety of reasons, can shop at their peril.
If medicine was illegally tampered with, would you leave a comment saying people should only buy it at their local super special apothecary and you can't be bothered to feel sorry for the people who buy it at a chain pharmacy? Or would you be understanding of the fact that it is inherently wrong to mislead people and break rules that are in place for their well-being?
You're elitism and thoughtlessness really takes the cake. The cake is from the supermarket, so you know, artificial colors and such.
Must be nice to be rich enough to be able to afford the specialized stores.
Lima, I live in a town of 1,200 people. Our grocery store isn't even a supermarket.
Our count seat of around 15,000 people is a 35-mile round trip. It has two (low-end) supermarkets because this is a relatively poor and sparsely-populated area.
The nearest Trader Joe's and Whole Foods is several counties away -- a 140-mile round trip. That town location is also where the nearest good farmer's market is -- in the summer only.
I'm a foodie who'd love to shop at specialty stores. Enjoy your proximity to high-quality, expensive foodstuffs. Some of us aren't so lucky.
Indeed, when I read Lima's hopefully, Simply not well thought out post, I thought, the pele who grow organic and raise organic are the ones living in areas where chains are the rule and specialty stores are for urban landscapes.
So it seems as if the consumer is dumping on the humans who make those specialty products.
Great article on sustainable family coffee farms. Julie Craves offers a list of mostly shade growing farms that may also use agroforestry and are certainly more trustworthy than Starbucks or Nestle. (Tan box towards the end of the article lists the coffee sources).
http://birdwatchingdaily.com/en/Getting%20Started/Featured%20Stories/2012/12/The%20true%20cost%20of%20coffee.aspx
I noticed the discussion on specialty stores. More people are trying to plant community gardens to provide FREE food to communities. Yes, I know you can't grow coffee in Minnesota or keep bees in your back yard. But with drought food is going to be more expensive everywhere, and we'd be foolish to not take advantage of the amazing number of empty lots in our towns. Raised beds can provide clean soil but soil restoration should be done if possible.
If communities did this (and if people dropped the candy bars, soda, other crap from their grocery list) we would be able to buy one or two specialty items (you can order online too, olive oil lasts a while) within your grocery budget. And by the way many supermarkets charge the same for health food items as the local market.
These are new times and we're going to have to face new challenges. I hope we do so sustainably and with the goal of making food a growing and free product for most communities.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/290256474/helpyourself-public-gardens-and-fruit-trees-in-nor
We heard about the Olive Oil fraud on NPR and then 60 minutes did a segment on fraudulent truffles and quite frankly it makes me so mad that our food supply continues to be tampered with. On that note, I was able to pick up a bottle of California Olive Ranch Olive Oil on sale at Shop Rite and it was very good. http://www.californiaoliveranch.com/
Also, if you have a TJ Maxx or Marshalls or even Home Good in your are, they sometimes sell specialty food items that are actually high quality. I got my coconut oil there at an amazing low price!
For some reason I though there was a law against misleading products. Guess I was wrong. Somebody in my Intro to International Relations class a couple of days ago said something about states (nations), governments and people always promoting but never ensuring our human rights. And I think what that person said applies to not only human rights, but the environment and our food among other things. Too bad our planet is run by capitalist societies.
Isn't it illegal to exclude ingredients on a label? Did I miss something?
Ah, fraudulent olive oil. Now there's an old tradition.
It's a pretty common problem for olive oil. If a bottle says 'Italian olive oil,' chances are it's not from Italy, not made from olives, or both. And in some cases it can be oil that's a year old or more that's been 'cleaned' up. It's pretty big industry too. People have compared it to cocaine trafficking in terms of profits.
The fake/altered stuff is so prevalent, if you had a taste test with generally available olive oil and 100% guarantee pure olive oil, a lot of people would pick the pure stuff as the fake because the taste is so different than what they're used to.
Companies in the US can get around label laws by having misleading front labels and then putting the real deal in the fine print on the back. For instance, with pomegranate juice, it says "Pomegranate - 100% Juice." Which implies that it is 100% POMEGRANATE juice, when in fact it is only saying that the contents of the bottle are 100% juice of any kind, not pomegranate. If you read the list of ingredients you'll often find apple, pear, or grape (sometimes all three) listed long before any juice from more expensive fruit like pomegranate, cherries, or blueberries.
Honey is not regulated like other foods, hence many things can be called "honey" that did not come directly from bees.
You can call it "maple" so long as it has only a fraction of the real stuff in it (though you can't say it's 100% then). Most commercial syrups are "maple flavored," or worse yet, "table syrups" or "pancake syrups," with no maple syrup in them at all.
Olive oil has in the last year come out as being notoriously tampered with, especially "extra virgin," which is often anything but. Even experts were shocked. The book "Extra Virgin" which came out recently did some of the legwork to break this story.
Putting "milk" in the title of this article is misleading, as the adulterated milk is located outside of the US and Europe (your primary readership) - mainly, India and South America. Thankfully, the US has fairly rigorous standards for dairy production (in terms of the end product, anyway).
vingatejenta makes some very, very valid points. If you don't bring a magnifying glass and chemical dictionary with you to the grocery store you may not know what you're eating. You've GOT to read all the fine print on the back label...
Perhaps @Lima's point was more along the lines of "you get what you pay for", and that consumers should exercise responsibility with their purchasing choices. We know that free-range, organic meat costs more, and rightly so. It is perhaps naïve to expect to be able to buy mechanically pressed extra virgin olive oil, saffron, or maple syrup at rock bottom prices.