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From ‘Honey Laundering’ to Fake Caviar: The Seven Types of Food Frauds
After enjoying what seemed to be a lovely meal, what if you were told the prawns you’d just eaten were injected with an unknown gel to make them look plumper and weigh more? Or the expensive wine you drank with it was diluted with fruit juice?
For many of us, this seems unbelievable, especially in Australia, but it’s happening all over the world. Our food supply chains are now longer, more complex and faster than ever before, with some blind spots that cannot be regulated.
This breach of trust — known as food fraud — happens when food producers or distributors intentionally deceive consumers, shops and restaurants about the quality and contents of the foods they are purchasing. Consumers face wasting money on lower-quality products, or more worryingly, eating food adulterated with toxic ingredients or undeclared allergens.
Food fraud can occur in the raw food itself, an ingredient, the final product, or in the food’s packaging, sometimes with fatal results. There are some tips for consumers to avoid food fraud, but we also need better ways to prevent and detect it.
A New California Bill Aims to Ban Paraquat. Yep, That Toxic Stuff Is Still Around.
When Americans of a certain age hear the word “paraquat,” the first thing that might leap to mind is Mexican weed. That’s because, in the late 1970s, the United States government thought it would be a good idea to pay the Mexican government to spray this potent herbicide on marijuana fields south of the border.
Bill Allayaud, who is of a certain age, knew immediately what I was talking about. He’s vice president of California government affairs for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG), a consumer advocacy organization that’s rallying behind a new state bill to ban the spraying of paraquat in California — where I was surprised to learn it is still applied in large quantities by growers of almonds, pistachios, and cotton.
The feds’ paraquat ploy “blew up in their face,” Allayaud recalls. “Everyone’s like, ‘What, you’re spraying weed that’s being imported into the United States? Are people getting sick smoking it?” That would have been hard to track, given that nobody wanted to go to jail. (The feds, in any case, continued with their spraying programs elsewhere.)
But even the government acknowledges that paraquat, now banned in more than 60 countries, is highly toxic. A restricted chemical, it has been linked to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, and to various cancers and neurological problems. The U.S. EPA forbids its use on golf courses but still lets it be sprayed on crops.
New York Is Suing the World’s Biggest Meat Company. It Might Be a Tipping Point for Greenwashing
When the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, announced that it would be suing the world’s largest meat company, JBS, for misleading customers about its climate commitments, it caused a stir far beyond the world of food. That’s because the suit’s impact has the potential to influence the approach all kinds of big businesses take in their advertising about sustainability, according to experts.
It’s just one in a string of greenwashing lawsuits being brought against large airline, automobile and fashion companies of late. “It’s been 20 years of companies lying about their environmental and climate justice impacts. And it feels like all of a sudden, from Europe to the U.S., the crackdown is beginning to happen,” said Todd Paglia, executive director of environmental non-profit Stand.earth. “I think greenwash[ing] is actually one of the pivotal issues in the next five years.”
Research suggests that citizens are increasingly demanding more sustainably produced goods, and big businesses are taking note. But rather than actually changing their practices, many instead turn to messaging that falsely implies their products are better for the Earth than they actually are in order to keep customers happy.
That’s what the attorney general has asserted that JBS — a parent company that owns brands and subsidiaries like Swift, Pilgrim’s Pride and Grass Run Farms — is doing. The legal complaint notes that “the JBS Group has made sweeping representations to consumers about its commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that it will be ‘Net Zero by 2040.’” But those claims aren’t grounded in reality, the complaint goes on to argue, not only because JBS isn’t taking concrete steps toward those goals, but because as recently as September 2023, the CEO admitted in a public forum that the company didn’t even know how to calculate all of its emissions. It follows that what can’t be measured won’t be mitigated.
Is Decaf Coffee Safe to Drink? Experts Weigh In on Claims by Health Advocacy Groups
For people avoiding caffeine, decaf coffee seems like a harmless option. But some health advocacy groups that argue otherwise are petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban a key chemical involved in the decaffeination process due to cancer concerns.
That chemical is methylene chloride, a colorless liquid that’s used in certain industrial processes, “including paint stripping, pharmaceutical manufacturing, paint remover manufacturing, and metal cleaning and degreasing,” according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Methylene chloride has long been known to be a carcinogen, designated as such by the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program, the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization, said Dr. Maria Doa, senior director of chemical policy for the Environmental Defense Fund, one of five groups and individuals behind two food and color additive petitions sent to the FDA in November.
“In addition to being carcinogenic, methylene chloride can cause other health harms, such as liver toxicity and at higher exposures neurological effects, and in some cases death,” Doa added via email. These risks are in the context of external acute exposure to high levels of the chemical, or ingestion of the chemical on its own, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘Political Efforts’: The Republican States Trying to Ban Lab-Grown Meat
At a press conference in February, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, told a room full of reporters: “We’re not going to do that fake meat. That doesn’t work.” He’d been discussing legislation under debate in the statehouse that would ban cell-cultivated meat — an emerging technique that, instead of slaughtering animals for consumption, grows meat in a lab using a small sample of animal cells.
In March, Florida passed the legislation both men had been addressing: making it the first state in the nation poised to ban “lab-grown” meat. (DeSantis still needs to sign the bill.)
Florida isn’t the only state on track to ban cell-cultivated meat. Three other states — Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee — are currently debating legislation that would ban the production or sale of cell-cultivated meat, despite the fact that cell-cultivated meat isn’t actually on sale anywhere in the country. Sixteen states plus the federal government have already instituted regulations on labeling cell-cultivated meat, such as prohibiting companies from using the word “meat” in their marketing or requiring them to print a disclosure explaining that the product contains cell-cultured products.
Although more than 150 companies are now working in the cell-cultivated meat industry worldwide, it’s not yet widely available to the public: Only two restaurants in the U.S. have sold cultivated meat. In 2023, restaurants in San Francisco and Washington DC sold cell-cultivated chickens developed by Upside Foods and Good Meat — but those products are no longer available at either restaurant.
U.S. Meat Lobby Delighted at ‘Positive’ Prospects for Industry After Cop28
Lobbyists for the world’s biggest meat companies have lauded a better-than-expected outcome at Cop28, which they say left them “excited” and “enthusiastic” for their industry’s prospects.
U.S. livestock bosses reflected on the conference’s implication for their sector on a virtual panel, fresh from “sharing U.S. agriculture’s story” at the climate summit in December.
Campaigners and climate scientists had hoped the summit, which was billed as a “Food Cop” because of its focus on farming, would result in governments agreeing to ambitious action to transform food systems in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
But while more than 130 governments vowed to tackle agriculture’s carbon footprint, a slew of announcements and initiatives failed to set binding targets or to broach the question of reducing herds of ruminant livestock such as cattle and sheep, which are agriculture’s largest driver of emissions.
An Iowa Fertilizer Plant Purchase Spurs Antitrust Concerns
When farmer Joshua Manske heard about the acquisition of an Iowa fertilizer plant by Koch Industries in December, he saw it as a “microcosm of what’s going on nationally.”
Manske runs conventional crop operations in Iowa and Minnesota, including managing a 1,000-acre family farm in northern Iowa, and primarily plants a rotation of corn and soybeans. Because corn requires nitrogen fertilizer to grow, Manske is concerned that further consolidation of the fertilizer industry will drive his input prices up more.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Okay, here we go again,’” he said, referring to the acquisition. “You want competition. That’s what’s going to help drive your fertilizer prices where they should be between supply and demand. And if you don’t have that, well, then [prices] struggle. And then it makes everybody struggle.”
How Food Companies Like Coke and Kraft-Heinz Are Targeting Low-Income Americans
Americans relying on government benefits to buy food and other essentials are slashing spending, prompting food makers like Kraft-Heinz (KHC.O) and Conagra Brands (CAG.N) to overhaul their products and strategies following years of price hikes.
Many of the biggest makers of packaged foods and drinks are seeing their sales volumes fall, due partly to low-income consumers — typically making roughly less than $35,000 per year — cooking from scratch, using up leftovers or just buying less.
People struggling to make ends meet are buying “whatever is on the shelf that you can stretch longer and further to feed the many mouths that might be sitting around the table,” said Carlos Rodriguez, chief policy and operations officer at City Harvest, which distributes fresh food in New York City.
They are “forgoing items you normally want, which is fresh nutritious food,” Rodriguez said.
Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to Higher Glaucoma Risk, Study Warns
News-Medical Life Sciences reported:
In a recent study published in the journal Nutrients, researchers examined the relationship between ultra-processed food (UPF) intake and glaucoma incidence among Spanish university graduates.
Glaucoma is a leading cause of lifelong blindness globally, defined by the gradual loss of retinal ganglion cells. Elevated intraocular pressure, advanced age, non-Caucasian race, and family history increase glaucoma risk. However, alterable environmental variables like nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle are increasingly associated with its development.
In the present observational, prospective cohort study, researchers investigated whether consuming UPF increases the incidence of glaucoma among university graduates in Spain.
Overall, the study found that individuals with the highest UPF consumption had a higher likelihood of glaucoma development than those with the lowest UPF consumption.
Furthermore, when examined individually, UPF from sweets revealed a significant glaucoma risk. The findings underscore the importance of health monitoring and controlling the intake of UPFs (particularly high-sugar ones) to reduce incident glaucoma cases.
Appleton Business Focuses on Organic Alternatives to Planting With Pesticides
Pesticides are designed to kill, repel or disrupt living things that are considered pests. Some people and businesses are trying to use alternatives to pesticides.
Vande Hey Company maintenance supervisor, Angela Ryczkowski, said the company uses corn gluten meal for their plants. She said it is one of the only non-toxic products of its kind.
According to the National Library of Medicine, nearly 1.8 billion people engage in agriculture. Most of them use pesticides to protect the food and commercial products they produce.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates 50 million Americans get their drinking water from the ground potentially contaminated by pesticides or other chemicals.
