When did PET become poisonous packaging material? As a PhD food scientist, I would like to clarify that legitimate food allergies are the result of an adverse reaction to proteins found in food, not chemicals produced during processing, packaging, and shipping (examples please). People may have intolerances to food components (non-protein) but true allergic reactions, unlikely. Also, these "chemicals", as one noted, can be detected in foods with sophisticated analytical processes; however, the resources for academic researchers like myself are not there to support this type of constant analysis. Finally, chemicals are in our food! In fact, for those of use that consume food on a regular basis put chemicals in our mouth everyday like water, salt, sugar, coffee, bread, carrots, tomatoes, etc. There isn't a thing out there that is not a chemical. I work hard to educate my students on this very fact so that they are properly informed and can then continue to educate the public on such topics.
The Fake-Food Detectives
Food fraud has been around almost as long as food itself. Finally, some experts are starting to get tough.
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A fashion fake is easy to spot: the label says BURBERRY, but the pattern is slightly off-color, the price is too good to be true, and the vendor is operating out of a corner market on Manhattan's infamous Canal Street. But fake food? Not that easy, partly because most of us don't even think to look for it. We assume that if the label says EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL or WILD SALMON, that's what's we're getting. According to a whole host of experts, we shouldn't be so sure.
When the FBI dubbed counterfeiting "the crime of the century" they weren't just talking about Prada handbags and Rolex watches. The counterfeit food industry is worth about $49 billion a year, according to the World Customs Institute, and it involves everything from fine food to boxed fruit juice. "Products are moving around the world so fast now that there is just ample opportunity," says John Spink, a food-fraud expert at Michigan State University. "And the demand for inexpensive food virtually guarantees that the problem will persist and grow."
With that reality in mind, MSU has launched the Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection Program (ACAPPP). The first program of its kind, ACAPPP will employ a range of experts, from food safety and criminal justice to international business and engineering, to develop an international hub for anti-counterfeiting strategies.
Food fraud, which typically means the intentional adulteration of food with cheaper ingredients for economic gain, has a long, fascinating history in both the U.S. and Europe, as documented in the excellent book Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee. But because such fraud occupies an awkward gap between food safety (which deals with accidental food contamination) and food defense or bioterrorism (which deals with intentional corruption of the food supply by terrorist groups), it hasn't received much attention. Until recently.
In 2008, Chinese officials reported that milk adulterated with melamine—a chemical that makes the milk appear to have a higher protein content—caused 900 infants to be hospitalized for kidney problems. When six of those babies died, a media firestorm shone a spotlight on food fraud in China and touched off a wave of panic in the United States.
Over the years, smaller scandals have supplied a steady stream of headlines. In 2007, the University of North Carolina found that 77 percent of fish labeled as red snapper—a flavorful white fish most commonly harvested in the Gulf of Mexico—was actually tilapia, a much more ubiquitous and less flavorful species. Elsewhere, inspectors have found catfish being sold as grouper (the latter costs nearly twice as much as the former), French cognac adulterated with U.S.-made brandy, and honey mixed with cheaper sugars like high-fructose corn syrup. And in 2008, food safety officers seized more than 10,000 cases of counterfeit extra virgin olive oil, worth more than $700,000, from warehouses in New York and New Jersey.
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