The world is full of people trying to rip you off, and food manufacturers are no exception.
You, like the rest of us, have experienced half-empty packages (their excuse is always “it settled,” but in reality they’re suckering you into paying big-package prices for small-package contents).
But it isn’t just packaging they play games with. Now comes this: “The food in your kitchen cabinets may not be what it seems.”
“Fraudsters motivated by economic gain secretly infiltrate the global food market through a variety of means, including counterfeits, dilutions, substitution and mislabeling,” CNBC says (here).
“Between 2012 and 2021, the most common type food fraud was lying about an animal’s origin and dilution or substitution,” a food-safety monitoring organization said.
A major target of fraudsters: Olive oil, by diluting it with cheap vegetable oil. (I read about this a while ago, and don’t buy Mafia olive oil; not trusting European olive oil, I use a California product, see ratings here.)
The CNBC story doesn’t offer a lot of specific advice for avoiding food fraud; they want you to watch a 12-minute video embedded in their story. My personal thoughts:
- It’s easier to play games or pass off poor quality when food is processed; it’s harder to mess with fresh meat, fish, or vegetables, although you have to watch out for mislabeled and/or farmed fish.
- Apart from packaging tricks, there are ingredient tricks; I just assume that anything processed, packaged, or canned is made with the cheapest ingredients.
- Sodium and sugar, which are very cheap, are commonly added to products in abundance to improve taste, but that’s unhealthy.
Food is a business, and like any business, food processors are trying to maximize profits. They often do so by deceiving or fooling customers.