6 ms·

I don't think it's a coincidence that these fake food articles—truffle oil, olive oil, seafood—are springing up after Larry Olmsted recently published Real Food

I don't think it's a coincidence that these fake food articles—truffle oil, olive oil, seafood—are springing up after Larry Olmsted recently published Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It. Olmsted exposes rampant fraudulent labeling and deceptive practices in the food industry, including Parmesan cheese, olive oil, truffle oil, seafood (salmon, snapper, white tuna, shrimp), Kobe beef, and more. I'm about halfway through the book, and it's shocking. It's definitely changed how I shop for certain food and what I order in restaurants.

dandandans 10y ago
Here are a few notes: * 91% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and half of it is farmed. Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. * A study of NYC seafood done by Oceana, a non-profit marine conservation group, found fraud in 58% of retail outlets and 39% of restaurants. * Every sushi restaurant from which samples were collected—100%—served fake fish * A supermarket test 2011 found that the five top-selling imported "extra virgin" olive oil brands in the United States failed to meet the basic legal standard 73% of the time. * In 2001, the USDA banned the importation of Kobe eef due to cases of mad cow disease. The ban was lifted in 2012, but only a handful of restaurants/suppliers are able to obtain real Kobe Beef. Yet, we've all seen Kobe beef plastered everywhere on menus; it's all fake. * Kobe is a completely unregulated term. Under USDA regulations, the legal requirement for calling something Kobe beef is that it qualifies as beef.
- wfunction 10y ago
  > Every sushi restaurant from which samples were collected—100%—served fake fish I'm confused, what were they serving instead? Bison? Crab? Chicken? Tofu? Sharks? How can you fake fish? If I'm being honest, this sounds like an exaggeration to me. Maybe rephrase if that's not what you meant? (Edit: See my comment below [1] referring to Wikipedia -- it appears it's not even clear these are being mislabeled in the first place. Some people just don't think there is a huge distinction between the species; others do. That's another reason why this seems like a gross exaggeration of what is going on.) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466029
  - mcpherrinm 10y ago
    It's mislabelled fish. You can find the report here http://oceana.org/reports/widespread-seafood-fraud-found-new-york-city http://oceana.org/reports/widespread-seafood-fraud-found-new... There's a chart on page 5 for the substitutions. For example, replacing white tuna with escolar.
    - wfunction 10y ago
      It should be called "mislabeled fish" then. "Fake fish" sounds like they're selling you chicken or something, which is way more terrifying for someone trying to eat fish -- not everyone cares exactly what the species is so long as it's fish, but they'd freak out it wasn't even some kind of fish. Take note of [1]: > Escolar is considered by the FDA and most fish experts to be Tuna [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar#Mislabeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar#Mislabeling
      - chris_7 10y ago
        To me, the idea of eating something potentially mercury-toxic like tuna or swordfish when expecting something like salmon is pretty terrifying. I stay far away from those things. That seems unlikely to happen, though. If it's just arctic char marked as salmon, meh.
        wfunction 10y ago
        > To me, the idea of eating something potentially mercury-toxic like tuna or swordfish when expecting something like salmon is pretty terrifying. Yes, that's why I very clearly said > not everyone cares exactly what the species is And was anyone substituting salmon with tuna in the first place? It's not like every wild substitution is being made. Like I said, the FDA is fine with some of them. Your viewpoint is just fine (and I'm with you honestly) but my point is that a lot of other people have others.
        zumu 10y ago
        Escolar, which is often served in lieu of true tuna, is potentially harmful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keriorrhea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keriorrhea
- SilasX 10y ago
  >91% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and half of it is farmed. Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. That shouldn't, by itself, be a problem, right? Any importation is a big deal that requires a license and someone putting their name down as having responsibility for it. Even with low inspection, as soon as you find the fraud, you fine that importer and cut them off until they have their act together, right? Why doesn't that work as an incentive to prevent blatant abuses?
  - ZoF 10y ago
    by* itself (consider me triggered) Agreed, I'd expect it to work that way as well.
  - happyslobro 10y ago
    Names are cheap. If you need to buy them in bulk as a commodity, that can be arranged. I was lucky to work in the tame minority of the fishing industry, but we sure heard our fair share of horror stories from the boats registered out of the Philippines and Thailand. Not sure what percentage was true, but the common theme is: humans and their names and families are cheap, if the buyer isn't racist.
    - SilasX 10y ago
      Doesn't importation require a licensed citizen on the receiving side too though, which the government already has in a database? Those names can't be cheap.
- wyager 10y ago
  > Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. Yes, and? That's how statistical analysis works. You don't sample every single member of the population, as it would be infeasibly expensive. You can get almost as good results for a small fraction of the cost (through random sampling).
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    But when you do find a dud in inspection of say a batch of resistors for television production you reject the entire batch or shipment; you don't ask the supplier politely if they might consider taking it back. In an import context that could mean anything from a single case to a 40ft container or even a whole shipload in the case of fish. That seems to be a big part of the problem; in food inspections the inspectors don't have the same degree of power and authority as quality control inspectors in a factory (well at least in well run factories).
- jghn 10y ago
  My favorite Kobe lie is "kobe sliders" and "kobe hot dog", particularly when they're priced more or less normally, say < $20. There's a 0% chance there's a single gram of Kobe beef in those.
gutnor 10y ago
> Kobe beef Ah ! That explains how you can find kobe beef burger on a motor way dinner chain in Spain for the same price than a regular "gourmet" burger.
lbenes 10y ago
How can our government be failing us so miserably? Ensuring that our food is safe and properly labeled should be the most basic duties of a government. And yet they are failing us miserably. In April of 2011, a paper was published showing that 69% of store-bought olive oil was fake,[1] and yet the government has done practically nothing to protect us. In 2013, there was the Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak causing deadly brain absences in children and making hundreds sick. But nothing was done for over a year.[2] Instead of fixing the problems here, the government reacts by allowing China to process our chicken making the problem that much harder trace.[3] We’ve let Industry and lobbyists take our democracy from us with their super pacs and regulatory capture. When are people going to get fed up with this and demand that our government starts protecting us instead of the industry? [1] http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211finalreduced.pdf http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211fi... [2] http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/foster-farms-finally-recalls-chicken-sort-of-4829157 http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/foster-farms-finally-rec... [3] https://www.davidwolfe.com/usda-shipping-chickens-china-processing/ https://www.davidwolfe.com/usda-shipping-chickens-china-proc...
- pekk 10y ago
  I assume you support increased funding to FDA so they can hire more people and facilities to go after these cases, and that you are persuading others to also support this.
  - pyre 10y ago
    The FDA has its own set of problems. I feel like increasing funding doesn't guarantee that they will spend it on sorting out this fake food business.
  - ddeck 10y ago
    Hiring the right people is likely to be more productive than hiring more. The FDA has a "revolving door" problem with the industries it is supposed to be regulating. From a NY Times editorial on their poor response to a recent issue with supplements: Much of the responsibility for the F.D.A.’s sluggish response must fall on Dr. Daniel Fabricant, who left a senior position at the Natural Products Association, a trade group for supplement makers and sellers, to head the F.D.A.’s division of dietary supplement programs in early 2011 and who jumped back to the trade association as its chief executive in the spring of 2014. He has been succeeded at the F.D.A. by several acting directors; the current one is Cara Welch, from the same trade group. Both dragged their feet on BMPEA. [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/conflicts-of-interest-at-the-fda.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/conflicts-of-inter...
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> I don't think it's a coincidence that these fake food articles—truffle oil, olive oil, seafood—are springing up after Larry Olmsted recently published Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It. If he really did publish recently, it can hardly be anything else; the olive oil and seafood results are many years old. They are more likely to have inspired him to write the book than the other way around.
bambax 10y ago
If you buy your seafood whole you avoid a lot of frauds; you can't buy a whole cow but you can absolutely buy a whole fish or pieces of salmon cut in front of you. I would not buy seafood any other way (and I'm not sure I ever have -- seafood doesn't stay fresh for a long time, it feels quite dangerous to buy packaged in a supermarket).
- protomyth 10y ago
  Why would you think you cannot buy a whole cow? A large freezer or friends ordering at the same time solves this problem.
  - bambax 10y ago
    Where would you buy it? Unlike fish where the prep is done in front of you, a cow has to be prepped before you even see it, very soon after it dies (or it will explode). And it weights 400 kg. Or maybe you want to buy it when it's still alive? At least you can walk it back to your place. But good luck dealing with the killing and the blood. Sometimes you can buy whole parts of game (a leg or a shoulder maybe) but that's about it! ;-)
    - tqwcs 10y ago
      You can buy a cow and have someone kill it and butcher it. I've known people that have done this.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      We call up the rancher / farmer and buy the whole cow then a custom slaughter house / butcher get it and cuts it up. You probably want it hung for 30 days in cold storage. People do this, a co-worker goes out to Montana each year. Some grocery stores in the area do this, it's cheaper than buying the individual pieces.

dandandans 10y ago

Here are a few notes: * 91% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and half of it is farmed. Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. * A study of NYC seafood done by Oceana, a non-profit marine conservation group, found fraud in 58% of retail outlets and 39% of restaurants. * Every sushi restaurant from which samples were collected—100%—served fake fish * A supermarket test 2011 found that the five top-selling imported "extra virgin" olive oil brands in the United States failed to meet the basic legal standard 73% of the time. * In 2001, the USDA banned the importation of Kobe eef due to cases of mad cow disease. The ban was lifted in 2012, but only a handful of restaurants/suppliers are able to obtain real Kobe Beef. Yet, we've all seen Kobe beef plastered everywhere on menus; it's all fake. * Kobe is a completely unregulated term. Under USDA regulations, the legal requirement for calling something Kobe beef is that it qualifies as beef.

wfunction 10y ago
> Every sushi restaurant from which samples were collected—100%—served fake fish I'm confused, what were they serving instead? Bison? Crab? Chicken? Tofu? Sharks? How can you fake fish? If I'm being honest, this sounds like an exaggeration to me. Maybe rephrase if that's not what you meant? (Edit: See my comment below [1] referring to Wikipedia -- it appears it's not even clear these are being mislabeled in the first place. Some people just don't think there is a huge distinction between the species; others do. That's another reason why this seems like a gross exaggeration of what is going on.) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466029
- mcpherrinm 10y ago
  It's mislabelled fish. You can find the report here http://oceana.org/reports/widespread-seafood-fraud-found-new-york-city http://oceana.org/reports/widespread-seafood-fraud-found-new... There's a chart on page 5 for the substitutions. For example, replacing white tuna with escolar.
  - wfunction 10y ago
    It should be called "mislabeled fish" then. "Fake fish" sounds like they're selling you chicken or something, which is way more terrifying for someone trying to eat fish -- not everyone cares exactly what the species is so long as it's fish, but they'd freak out it wasn't even some kind of fish. Take note of [1]: > Escolar is considered by the FDA and most fish experts to be Tuna [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar#Mislabeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar#Mislabeling
    - chris_7 10y ago
      To me, the idea of eating something potentially mercury-toxic like tuna or swordfish when expecting something like salmon is pretty terrifying. I stay far away from those things. That seems unlikely to happen, though. If it's just arctic char marked as salmon, meh.
      - wfunction 10y ago
        > To me, the idea of eating something potentially mercury-toxic like tuna or swordfish when expecting something like salmon is pretty terrifying. Yes, that's why I very clearly said > not everyone cares exactly what the species is And was anyone substituting salmon with tuna in the first place? It's not like every wild substitution is being made. Like I said, the FDA is fine with some of them. Your viewpoint is just fine (and I'm with you honestly) but my point is that a lot of other people have others.
      - zumu 10y ago
        Escolar, which is often served in lieu of true tuna, is potentially harmful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keriorrhea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keriorrhea
SilasX 10y ago
>91% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and half of it is farmed. Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. That shouldn't, by itself, be a problem, right? Any importation is a big deal that requires a license and someone putting their name down as having responsibility for it. Even with low inspection, as soon as you find the fraud, you fine that importer and cut them off until they have their act together, right? Why doesn't that work as an incentive to prevent blatant abuses?
- ZoF 10y ago
  by* itself (consider me triggered) Agreed, I'd expect it to work that way as well.
- happyslobro 10y ago
  Names are cheap. If you need to buy them in bulk as a commodity, that can be arranged. I was lucky to work in the tame minority of the fishing industry, but we sure heard our fair share of horror stories from the boats registered out of the Philippines and Thailand. Not sure what percentage was true, but the common theme is: humans and their names and families are cheap, if the buyer isn't racist.
  - SilasX 10y ago
    Doesn't importation require a licensed citizen on the receiving side too though, which the government already has in a database? Those names can't be cheap.
wyager 10y ago
> Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud. Yes, and? That's how statistical analysis works. You don't sample every single member of the population, as it would be infeasibly expensive. You can get almost as good results for a small fraction of the cost (through random sampling).
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  But when you do find a dud in inspection of say a batch of resistors for television production you reject the entire batch or shipment; you don't ask the supplier politely if they might consider taking it back. In an import context that could mean anything from a single case to a 40ft container or even a whole shipload in the case of fish. That seems to be a big part of the problem; in food inspections the inspectors don't have the same degree of power and authority as quality control inspectors in a factory (well at least in well run factories).
jghn 10y ago
My favorite Kobe lie is "kobe sliders" and "kobe hot dog", particularly when they're priced more or less normally, say < $20. There's a 0% chance there's a single gram of Kobe beef in those.

gutnor 10y ago

> Kobe beef Ah ! That explains how you can find kobe beef burger on a motor way dinner chain in Spain for the same price than a regular "gourmet" burger.

lbenes 10y ago

How can our government be failing us so miserably? Ensuring that our food is safe and properly labeled should be the most basic duties of a government. And yet they are failing us miserably. In April of 2011, a paper was published showing that 69% of store-bought olive oil was fake,[1] and yet the government has done practically nothing to protect us. In 2013, there was the Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak causing deadly brain absences in children and making hundreds sick. But nothing was done for over a year.[2] Instead of fixing the problems here, the government reacts by allowing China to process our chicken making the problem that much harder trace.[3] We’ve let Industry and lobbyists take our democracy from us with their super pacs and regulatory capture. When are people going to get fed up with this and demand that our government starts protecting us instead of the industry? [1] http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211finalreduced.pdf http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/research/files/report041211fi... [2] http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/foster-farms-finally-recalls-chicken-sort-of-4829157 http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/foster-farms-finally-rec... [3] https://www.davidwolfe.com/usda-shipping-chickens-china-processing/ https://www.davidwolfe.com/usda-shipping-chickens-china-proc...

pekk 10y ago
I assume you support increased funding to FDA so they can hire more people and facilities to go after these cases, and that you are persuading others to also support this.
- pyre 10y ago
  The FDA has its own set of problems. I feel like increasing funding doesn't guarantee that they will spend it on sorting out this fake food business.
- ddeck 10y ago
  Hiring the right people is likely to be more productive than hiring more. The FDA has a "revolving door" problem with the industries it is supposed to be regulating. From a NY Times editorial on their poor response to a recent issue with supplements: Much of the responsibility for the F.D.A.’s sluggish response must fall on Dr. Daniel Fabricant, who left a senior position at the Natural Products Association, a trade group for supplement makers and sellers, to head the F.D.A.’s division of dietary supplement programs in early 2011 and who jumped back to the trade association as its chief executive in the spring of 2014. He has been succeeded at the F.D.A. by several acting directors; the current one is Cara Welch, from the same trade group. Both dragged their feet on BMPEA. [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/conflicts-of-interest-at-the-fda.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/conflicts-of-inter...

thaumasiotes 10y ago

> I don't think it's a coincidence that these fake food articles—truffle oil, olive oil, seafood—are springing up after Larry Olmsted recently published Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It. If he really did publish recently, it can hardly be anything else; the olive oil and seafood results are many years old. They are more likely to have inspired him to write the book than the other way around.

bambax 10y ago

If you buy your seafood whole you avoid a lot of frauds; you can't buy a whole cow but you can absolutely buy a whole fish or pieces of salmon cut in front of you. I would not buy seafood any other way (and I'm not sure I ever have -- seafood doesn't stay fresh for a long time, it feels quite dangerous to buy packaged in a supermarket).

protomyth 10y ago
Why would you think you cannot buy a whole cow? A large freezer or friends ordering at the same time solves this problem.
- bambax 10y ago
  Where would you buy it? Unlike fish where the prep is done in front of you, a cow has to be prepped before you even see it, very soon after it dies (or it will explode). And it weights 400 kg. Or maybe you want to buy it when it's still alive? At least you can walk it back to your place. But good luck dealing with the killing and the blood. Sometimes you can buy whole parts of game (a leg or a shoulder maybe) but that's about it! ;-)
  - tqwcs 10y ago
    You can buy a cow and have someone kill it and butcher it. I've known people that have done this.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    We call up the rancher / farmer and buy the whole cow then a custom slaughter house / butcher get it and cuts it up. You probably want it hung for 30 days in cold storage. People do this, a co-worker goes out to Montana each year. Some grocery stores in the area do this, it's cheaper than buying the individual pieces.