EXCLUSIVE: Group Finds More Fake Food Ingredients

[louis-t]

http://gma.yahoo.com/exclusive-group-finds-more-fake-food-ingredients-090412537--abc-news-topstories.html

In a new database to be released Wednesday, and obtained exclusively by ABC News today, USP warns consumers, the FDA and manufacturers that the amount of food fraud they found is up by 60 percent this year.

USP tells ABC News that liquids and ground foods in general are the easiest to tamper with:

Olive oil: often diluted with cheaper oils
Lemon juice: cheapened with water and sugar
Tea: diluted with fillers like lawn grass or fern leaves
Spices: like paprika or saffron adulterated with dangerous food colorings that mimic the colors
Milk, honey, coffee and syrup are also listed by the USP as being highly adulterated products.

Also high on the list: seafood. The number one fake being escolar, an oily fish that can cause stomach problems, being mislabeled as white tuna or albacore, frequently found on sushi menus.

[xfundy]

1. Our food supply has been tainted for some time

But it makes MONEY, so it's OK.

[flamingdem]

2. Lawn grass can be tasty! n/t

[longship]

3. To say nothing of the dreaded "sodium vibraphone"

Sorry for the Firesign Theater allusion. It's just my snarky, hopefully humorous, way of supporting your post.

My point is that fictional ingredients may be part of the marketing plan. The FDA needs to reign in this stuff. Unfortunately, I fear that in the 21st century, sufficient oversight has been whittled away that it will take something like a sea change to restore it.

What really gets my dander up is the lack of regulation on so-called supplements, which so-called Big Pharma is pouring tons of money into because they get a regulation free ride.

Both from the same regulation free Wild West that we've apparently bought into as a country.

We have to restore oversight.

on edit: R&K

[bemildred]

4. Yep, I've come to hate marketing, "Dissemble for money", "Pay more and get less!" nt

[Mosby]

5. why won't they name names?

What are they afraid of?

I drink tons of tea and am positive it's all labeled correctly.

The entire olive oil business is fucked up.

[Warpy]

6. All you can do with olive oil is find one you like the taste of

and stick to it. Even if it's adulterated with canola, it's still something that tastes good and is reasonably good for you.

I drink PG Tips tea from the UK. It's the cheap stuff they put into the Fortnum's box over there to try to fool guests. I've always assumed it's the floor sweepings they get after a day of blending premium teas. If there are grass clippings in it, they're very tasty grass clippings.

The other thing I drink is Chinese jasmine tea. You'd think anything from China would be adulterated, but the leaves are intact and grass clippings would show up rather badly.

It's still not as bad in the US as it is elsewhere. People in southeast Asia tell me they feel like they're taking a chance every time they eat anything. People in Europe have found themselves drinking cheap wine adulterated with antifreeze.

It would be like that here if we didn't have the FDA keeping things a bit more honest.