Food Fraud article from the washingtonpost.com
My thoughts:
“At the FDA’s first public meeting on food fraud last year, groups across the industry complained that it is not doing enough. ”If it’s not going to hurt or kill someone, FDA’s resources are limited enough that they can’t take time to address it,” said Bob Bauer, a spokesman for the National Honey Packers & Dealers Association and the North American Olive Oil Association.”
If the FDA is unable to handle this, can we, as caring consumers, step in to at least protect ourselves from buying a fraudulent product?
“The techniques have become so accessible that two New York City high school students, working with scientists at the Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History last year, discovered after analyzing DNA in 11 of 66 foods — including the sheep’s milk cheese and caviar — bought randomly at markets in Manhattan were mislabeled.”
If testing the quality/authenticity of food can be easy enough for even high school students to do with the right technology, can an inexpensive and simple home testing kit be created? I would be happy to test some products. The results could be posted on a website for all to see (bedbugregistry.com comes to mind), and all would benefit from this collaborative effort.
By having to answer directly to the people, dishonest companies might think twice about trying to pass off corn syrup as honey.
