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Counterfeit Foods, and How to Spot Them
by : LifeHacker
That Parmesan cheese is actually wood, that honey has corn syrup, and the cake is a lie. There’s no guarantee the food you’re buying at the store is what it says it is, so keep an eye out for these usual suspects if you don’t want to waste your money on fake, inferior products.
The distribution and selling of counterfeit foods is officially known as economically motivated adulteration (EMA), a subcategory of food fraud. EMA can be anything from altering the weight of the product by adding a lower quality ingredient to tampering with the product’s label.
Diluting fruit juice with water, adding chemicals to boost the protein content of a food, and changing the expiration dates on meat labels are all good examples. These acts are illegal, of course, and potential health concerns, but the issue is widespread and hard for the government to control.
In fact, according to the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), an estimated 7% of products in grocery stores nationwide contain fraudulent ingredients. Here are the most common offenders.
Parmesan Cheese
If you pay premium prices for decent Parmesan cheese, you’d think that’s exactly what you’d get. But the FDA has been cracking down on fraudulent Parmesan cheese for years now. In multiple instances, the FDA has found companies shilling “100% real” Parmesan with fillers like wood pulp, cellulose, and super cheap cheddar.
In fact, an FDA analysis suggests there’s no actual Parmesan cheese in the Market Pantry brand 100% grated Parmesan Cheese sold at Target. The same goes for the Always Save and Best Choice brands of 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese sold in 30 different states, which mostly contain mozzarella, white cheddar, and cellulose.
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Source: http://www.philosophers-stone.co.uk/?p=11121
