Top 10 Food Frauds: Hidden Formaldehyde, Plastic Threads, Melamine and Caustic Soda Found in Commonly Consumed Fare
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
As food production costs continue to skyrocket due to struggling economies, fuel prices and extreme weather, manufacturers worldwide are becoming creative.
Regrettably, this imaginative process includes such measures as substituting horse (or donkey) meat for beef, plastic threads for saffron, and phthalates for food-grade oil. Honey is diluted with high fructose corn syrup. Extra virgin olive oil is cut with lard. Blueberries are faked. The list documenting rampant food frauds could go on forever.
But one aspect is certain – now more than ever, it behooves us to buy local and source food from reputable small businesses like farmers’ markets and co-ops.
Top 10 Food Counterfeits
The following is a list of common edibles and contaminants:
Coffee: Twigs, roasted corn, barley or soybeans, rye flour, figs, potato flour, chicory powder, maltrodextrin, roasted ground parchment paper.
Honey: Antibiotics, partial invert cane sugar, beet sugar, glucose syrup and high-fructose corn syrup.
Blueberries: Completely fabricated without any real fruit at all. Corn syrup, sugar, hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors and colors along with starch.
Saffron: Red-dyed silk fiber, plastic threads, barium sulfate, daisy petals, colored grass, turmeric, corn silk, poppy petals, gypsum, starch, borax, glycerine, chalk and tartrazine.
Fruit juice and jams: High-fructose corn syrup, the plasticizer di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). Some varieties reportedly were void of real juice.
Olive oil: Peanut, corn or sunflower oil. Palm, walnut, hazelnut or soybean oil. Non-food grade industrial rapeseed oil, lard. Extra-virgin olive oil in China was found to be gutter oil – specifically, oil that has already been used for cooking and ‘recycled’.
Milk: Formaldehyde, machine oil, starch, pork lard, melamine, urea, caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide, detergent.
Orange juice: Monosodium glutamate (MSG), grapefruit solids, beet sugar, corn sugar, potassium sulfate.
Pure maple syrup: Water, high-fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, maple flavor, beet sugar.
Tea: Copper salts, china clay, sand, starch, regular plant leaves, colored straw dust, previously used tea leaves.
Buyer Beware
One of the most shocking food fraud cases involved counterfeit beef sold in Britain. As Jonathan Benson reports in the NaturalNews article, “Horse Meat Found in Yet More Frozen Dinners“, meat labeled as beef might actually be donkey:
“According to Jose Bove, Vice President of the European Parliament agriculture committee, this sudden influx of horse meat into the U.K. could actually include a large percentage of donkey meat as well. As it turns out, a law passed six years ago in Romania that bans horse-drawn carts from public roadways recently came into enforcement, which means millions of horses went to the chopping block. But included in this ban were donkey-drawn carts as well, which means both horse and donkey meat were potentially shipped throughout Europe as ‘beef’.”
PBut before spiraling downward into a fit of despair regarding the state of our food supply, keep in mind the words of Melissa Breyer, author of Food fraud: 10 Counterfeit Products We Commonly Consume:
“Don’t be scared by all of this, but be aware. Buy whole foods when you can. Shop at trusted co-ops and farmers markets when possible … And look out for deals that seem too good to be true; that super cheap saffron could well be nothing more than dyed daisy petals.”
Sources for this article include:
- mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/food-fraud-10-counterfeit-products-we-commonly-consume
- naturalnews.com/031054_blueberries_artificial_colors
- thedailymeal.com/moreslideshows/564844
- foxnews.com/leisure/2013/02/05/food-frauds-in-your-grocery-store
- npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/26/175377244/food-fraud-database-lets-us-all-play-detective
- foodfraud.org
Previous articles by Carolanne:
- Can Guerrilla Gardening Save The World?
- Wheat Madness – Is this Popular Grain Provoking Mental Illness?
- Autistic Boy With Higher IQ Than Einstein Discovers Gift After Removal From State-Run Therapy
- Oil Pulling: A Cheap, Easy & Effective Health Solution
- Research Shows ‘Thunder God Vine’ Compound Annihilates Cancer in 40 days
- Turmeric Melts Away Body Fat and Defeats Insulin Resistance
- The Ultimate Craving – How Industry Designs Food to be as Addictive as Narcotics
About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years
Through her website Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people from around the world who share a similar vision. Follow Carolanne on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
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