Food Fraud! Watch out for 'wild salmon' and a few other fakes out there
Filed under: Food, Ripoffs and Scams
The United States food supply is more reliable than those found in many other countries, but there are still some common scams to look out for: Consumer Reports found that most "wild salmon" advertised in grocery stores is actually of the less desirable farm-raised variety. A lot of olive oil is actually soybean oil and honey and maple syrup can be diluted with water and sugar by opportunists looking to make a quick buck. Click through our gallery to see which foods to beware of.
"It's really just fraud, plain and simple," Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute told the USA Today, referring to mislabeled seafood.
I'm not much of a gourmet myself but here's my question: If you buy "wild salmon" and believe it's wild salmon and enjoy it, isn't it just as well that you were able to save a few bucks because you were misled? It's mind over matter. I'm not defending the lying liars who are pushing diluted maple syrup but it's actually healthier if it's thinned out a bit with water. And if you can't tell the difference, who cares? Just be grateful that there's no lead in it.
On some products it matters more. Olive oil is popular in part because of strong evidence of its health benefits and depriving people of that with mislabeled benefits poses a serious problem. In any case, we should not start falling prey to this sort of scam. Today, it may just be water added to your maple syrup, but who knows what's next?
I'm not much of a gourmet myself but here's my question: If you buy "wild salmon" and believe it's wild salmon and enjoy it, isn't it just as well that you were able to save a few bucks because you were misled? It's mind over matter. I'm not defending the lying liars who are pushing diluted maple syrup but it's actually healthier if it's thinned out a bit with water. And if you can't tell the difference, who cares? Just be grateful that there's no lead in it.
On some products it matters more. Olive oil is popular in part because of strong evidence of its health benefits and depriving people of that with mislabeled benefits poses a serious problem. In any case, we should not start falling prey to this sort of scam. Today, it may just be water added to your maple syrup, but who knows what's next?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
1-20-2009 @ 8:18PM
Char said...
With all of the stuff that is legally and intentionally put in, or added to our food, (hormones, pestisides, chemicals, etc.) it seems impossible for us to keep track of what we are actually eating! Even organic foods can be faked so, the only way to make 100% sure of what we're eating is to grow/raise our own!
Reply
1-21-2009 @ 3:02PM
Ken said...
If you really want valuable information on food and what is planned for the food supply, then go to the following link:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org
and thanks to all the other comments from those who demand accountability and truth!
1-21-2009 @ 6:58PM
deeziner said...
"the only way to make 100% sure of what we're eating is to grow/raise our own!"
There's a great idea! you can save money and improve your family's health, as well as get a little exercise.
- Did you know that there is only about 3 days' supply of food in the supermarkets?
That means if anything disrupts the transport of food (natural disaster, trucker's strike, lack of fuel for trucks, whatever) it would take less than a week for a city to starve?
Remember the stories of the "Victory Gardens" during WWII? We need to do the same thing just to protect our families.
1-21-2009 @ 10:18PM
gd said...
Right on Char, Country Folk can survive
1-20-2009 @ 8:39PM
jimbo said...
so what, big deal..if it tastes good then go ahead and digest it...u only live till u die..
Reply
1-20-2009 @ 10:06PM
Red said...
Yea, Jimbo?? why don't you just eat nothing but ice cream while never moving off the couch & away from the TV........
1-21-2009 @ 8:30AM
frank said...
If you paid for Michelin tires and got retreads, wouldn't that be a big deal? That's what they're doing by representing farm salmon as a delicacy.
1-21-2009 @ 6:58PM
deeziner said...
And people die SOONER because of the crap in the food ...
In the article they said "If you buy "wild salmon" and believe it's wild salmon and enjoy it, isn't it just as well that you were able to save a few bucks"
No, it isn't "just as well" - farm raised salmon is not healthy because of the junk in the pelletized food they give the fish. It's cheap because they feed them crap - and whatever the fish eats, you get later.
As long as people care more about the price than the quality, we'll continue to get melamine in our milk and who-knows-what in our meat.
As long as you accept crap, you'll get crap. Happy eating!
1-20-2009 @ 9:57PM
pumpkinhead said...
Wild salmon is supposedly lower in mercury than farm-raised. Assuming that's true, it makes a difference.
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1-20-2009 @ 11:07PM
RE said...
I buy wild salmon from Alaska because it has the lowest levels of mercury than any other fish. It also does not have the PCB's that farm raised fish has. It also has a larger concentration of the omega 3 fatty acids. Why don't they get someone to write these articles who know what they are talking about.
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1-21-2009 @ 6:53AM
Joseph said...
Dude, how about some people learning how to read? The article stated:
"Consumer Reports found that most "wild salmon" advertised in grocery stores is actually of the less desirable farm-raised variety."
What this means (to those with low reading comprehension skills) is that what is labelled as "wild salmon" is not necessarily REALLY wild salmon, but the farm-raised variety that has been MIS-labelled as "wild" so that unsuspecting schlubs will pay more for it.
If YOU are absolutely certain that what you're buying and eating is 100% WILD salmon, then great. But what the article said is that, for too many people, what they THINK they're buying is NOT what they're actually getting. (There was an article some time back about people being scammed on some other type of fish; they were paying for what was supposed to be some expensive type of fish from Florida but it turned out to be some cheap fish from Asia. IIRC, the price difference between the two at retail was something like $7-10/lb.)
1-20-2009 @ 11:52PM
Bronco Bob said...
I got a great deal on powdered milk, tastes great. Can't read the label tho, some foreign language. Oowwww, brb, my kidneys hurt for some reason.............
Just making a little joke, lighten up folks.....
Reply
1-20-2009 @ 11:52PM
sweetjuliek said...
All the more reason to watch what you eat!.. Best way to do that is to cook for yourself! I found this hilarious cookbook called "Get in the Kitchen, BIT@HES!" (bitchcooks.com)- It has made cooking fun again!
Reply
1-21-2009 @ 12:13AM
kibby said...
The fish thing will be a big deal once someone gets nice and dead from their lies as opposed to shelling out out a few bucks more for an inferior or different product entirely. (Who wrote this?!? The people eating the 'false' fish aren't saving bucks by being misled. They're paying high and getting low.)
As for the syrup. How is it healthier that it's thinned out with water.. or sugar at that? (They need to read their source material.) Thinning it out with sugar and/or water is just going to make most people use more on their pancakes/waffles and such. How is that healthier? Not to mention how that changes the texture, flavor, composition and consistency. Things like that do matter in cooking. Especially, if you're baking with it. Hello, chemistry.
I agree with RE. The author of this information knows nothing about the subject they're writing on. Also, it seems clear that they didn't even read their own source material.
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1-21-2009 @ 12:35AM
niap223 said...
Just don't feed any of the bad things to your kids. See what happened to the chinese kids. There is going to be a rush to the dialisis machines, but only for the rest of their lives.
Reply
1-24-2009 @ 10:37AM
T said...
You're very right but I think the problem with this specificly is that companies and distributers are lying about the products they're selling us. Salmon is "good for you"....if it's realy salmon. Same as the honey and olive oil that we thought we were buying. Even if you ARe trying to buy something good for you, you might not be getting what you thought you were (and it may be a significantly unhealthy trade)
Also, this is a great article, but I would have like to have seen some examples of products that they know to be altered or false. All the article gave us are rumors about products in general and another thing to be worried about with our food/health. Some solutions on how to keep ourselves safe from being scammed or which brands they reccomend would have been very helpful! (follow-up article possibly?)
1-21-2009 @ 6:57PM
deeziner said...
It isn't just Chinese kids ... tainted milk products are in the USA too because Nestle and other companies bought cheap milk powder from China. Do a search on products in the USA that were tested and found to contain melamine ...
1-21-2009 @ 12:41AM
Mindy said...
Yes, this kid should make sure he has his facts right before posting, but he is a blogger (in college) not a journalist.
Reply
1-21-2009 @ 2:47AM
KC Hebert said...
The problem as I see it is not whether or not people are altering what we eat, but that we feel the need to eat the unhealthy things that we seem to crave. As usual, the further ahead we go, the behinder we get. It is time to grow our own gardens again, can our own things, and do our own butchering. The economy is failing...step up americans and help yourselves and your neighbors.
Reply
1-21-2009 @ 7:57AM
upurs said...
na..sorry...as far as helping my neighbors..forget it..i would rather fedd the garbage to them and watch them die...sorry to feel that way.