Food Scandals: "Beef" and Fish Deliberately Mislabeled

Food scandals have been in the news lately in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the U.S. In Europe and Asia, what's labeled beef has sometimes turned out to be horse meat. In South African burgers, fraudulent "beef" has turned out to be donkey, water buffalo, or goat.  What about the U.S.?  In this country, there's almost no risk of human consumption of horse meat. However, it's common for fish not to be the species the label says it is.  A cheaper fish could be replacing a more expensive one.  Let's delve a bit further into all these deceptions.

The horse meat scandal

Food Safety Tech has reported that the sale of fraudulent meat, which has reached across 28 companies and 13 European countries, has now extended into Asia.  Eating horse meat is not dangerous, but it is upsetting to people living in countries that don't generally use horse meat for human consumption.

Horse meat has turned up in supermarket frozen meals in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Demark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.  It's been found in burgers, lasagna, chili, goulash, and pasta sauce.  The Czech Republic is also attempting to confirm that nearly 15,000 packages of lasagna imported by that country contain horse meat. 

The scandal may have spread to Asia, where an imported brand of lasagna has been removed from Hong Kong store shelves.

In the U.S., however, there has been no horse meat scandal and no fear of one.  There are no horse slaughterhouses in the U.S., and the U.S. does not import horse meat for human consumption.  According to Food Safety Tech, the chances of Americans unintentionally eating horse meat are "fairly remote."

American seafood fraud

Mislabeling fish to give customers a cheaper type for the cost of the higher-priced product is nothing new in the U.S.  From 2010-2012, a study testing 1,215 samples found one-third of them mislabeled.  Food Safety Tech reported the following on a new study of fish purchased and genetically tested in 12 sections of the U.S.: 120 samples all labeled "red snapper" actually were 28 different species of fish; some of these weren't even in the snapper family.  Oceana, a nonprofit ocean protection group, conducted this study; the organization also reported that sushi bars headed the list of places that were misleading customers.  Supermarkets got higher marks for honesty.  Here are some of the astonishing figures on fish fraud:

• In New York, 94% of samples labeled "tuna" were not tuna.

• Two-thirds of the so-called wild salmon samples were actually farmed salmon.  (People buy wild salmon because it's considered healthier and better for the environment.)

• In New York, tierfish was substituted for red snapper and halibut, a dangerous replacement since tierfish is known to have a high mercury content and to be a problem for people who are sensitive to it. 

Oceana has found a lot of fish fraud on the East and West Coasts in the past two years.  Recently, the organization turned its spotlight on other cities, including Chicago.  On February 21, the Chicago Tribune ran an article on Oceana discoveries of fish fraud in the Chicago area. Overall, 32% of Chicago fish samples were mislabeled. Here are some examples: Of 93 samples taken from Chicago restaurants, retail stores, and sushi bars, 30 were mislabeled.  Eight of nine red snapper samples were actually some other fish.  None of 3 yellowtail samples was yellowtail. Furthermore, the newspaper reports, "Chicago purveyors were found marketing white tuna that was actually escolar, which is cheaper and can cause severe digestive problems." Mislabeling is not merely annoying because customers are not getting what they paid for.  For pregnant women, who are advised to limit their exposure to heavy metals, and for people who may have serious allergic reactions to some types of fish, significant harm can result.

Americans are particularly vulnerable when it comes to fish fraud because they tend to prefer mild-flavored fish that taste similar and to buy fillets rather than the whole fish. 

How can the public be protected from fish scams? Most consumers can't properly identify the fish they want to buy, so they're easily fooled. But the food industry and the government can fight back against fraud.  High-tech methods (such as DNA testing) have made fraud easier to recognize.  When the suspected product is fish, DNA can be extracted and then compared to the DNA of a database of samples. (DNA testing confirmed that some Polish beef imported into Ireland and labeled beef actually was up to 75% horse meat.)  

Also, isotope ratio analysis can detect where products originated, so it can tell whether a fish was farmed or caught in the wild or whether caviar was imported or is a domestic product.  So why can't those doing the mislabeling be caught and the fraud stopped?  One of the problems is that it's difficult to know who's to blame, where in the food supply chain the substitution occurred. 

What can consumers do to avoid being victims of fish fraud?  Oceana recommends the following: 1) Patronize stores that will answer your questions about the product you're considering purchasing.  2) Ask to see the whole fish even if you are only going to buy a fillet.  3) Ask retailers if their distributors are members of the Better Seafood Bureau, a voluntary group that, says the Chicago Tribune, "pledges to abide by ethical guidelines and accept audits if they receive a certain number of unresolved complaints."

For more info about food fraud in general, especially in the U.S., see this Shelf Life Advice article: "Food Fraud: Are you paying for scallops and getting shark meat?"

Source(s):

foodsafetytech.com "Horse Meat Scandal Rocking Europe"

http://www.foodsafetytech.com/FoodSafetyTech/News/1204.aspx

foodsafetytech.com "75% of Polish 'Beef' Contains Horsemeat, Tests Reveal"

http://www.foodsafetytech.com/FoodSafetyTech/News/1173.aspx 

newsinfo.inquirer.net "Study finds  donkey meat in South African burgers"

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/365625/study-finds-donkey-meat-in-south-african-burgers

foodsafetytech.com "Fish Commonly Mislabeled, Study Reports

http://www.foodsafetytech.com/FoodSafetyTech/News/Fish-Commonly-Mislabeled-Study-%20Reports--1201.aspx

Chicago Tribune "Some fishy business in seafood market?"  February 21, 2013