Food forgery
Have you ever encountered counterfeit food? Have you been deceived by receiving lower quality food? Or maybe what you expected from a given thing turned out to be something completely different? Nowadays, counterfeit food is becoming a common problem.
We hear about various cases, for example the problem of artificial eggs that I have heard many times, which look deceptively similar to the original ones. Stones locked in walnut shells, which, fortunately, do not harm our health because they can not be consumed.
Who of us does’nt remember the industrial salt sold as food
salt? It happened years ago in Poland but it was a big problem.
Vegetables are dipped in chemical substances to make them
look fresh and tasty.
Unfortunately, many of the above-mentioned tricks are harmful
to our health after ingestion. Many of the substances used here can contribute
to health problems such as the occurrence of cancer.
Remember how many times you got in a "Chinese
restaurant" beef that was actually pork?
In order to achieve a visual effect on pork, it must look
stuffed with many harmful chemicals.
Another problem we may be dealing with is counterfeit honey.
Natural honey is full of vitamins, unpolluted never crystallizes, but it is
enough that it gets dirty with other food, it causes its crystallization. Fake
artificial honey, are sweetened with sugar and never crystallize.
In China, we can meet appetizing-looking pieces of meat,
added to kebabs or served in a barbecue sauce. It turns out that it could be
rat meat not studied.
Check out the video about fake food.
The problem of
counterfeit food occurs everywhere, there are places where it is more or less
felt. India and the problem of counterfeit eggs are such a place.
“(…) According to IndiaToday, artificial eggs have become especially prevalent in Kerala, an Indian state located on the country’s southwest coast. The eggs have reportedly been popping up in stores and supermarkets, with some consumers mistakenly purchasing the fakes before complaining about the subtle differences: shells that are hard to crack and contents that become rubbery when cooked.(…)”
As we can see, this
is a common problem.
“(…) On Sunday, a woman who gave her name as Ms. Tian was shopping at a vegetable market in Luoyang, in central China’s Henan province, when she noticed a van selling eggs for about 6¢ cheaper than they were going for in supermarkets, the Guangming Daily reported. Assuming that the eggs were from a countryside seller not aware of city prices, she took her chances and bought 2.5 kg of the bargain eggs — which turned out to be fakes.(…)”
1.What is your worst experience with counterfeit food?
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
3. How can we fight it?
Sources :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ODZfJ7nY3I
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ypx59y/chinese-counterfeit-eggs-made-of-plastic-may-be-popping-up-in-thailand
https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/fake-chinese-eggs-are-a-big-problem-in-india
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-rotten-egg/
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ypx59y/chinese-counterfeit-eggs-made-of-plastic-may-be-popping-up-in-thailand
https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/fake-chinese-eggs-are-a-big-problem-in-india
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-rotten-egg/
Comments
Yesterday in Poznań I ate świętomarciński croissant with and without certificate. I don't know did you heard about this case, but traditional, healthy, delicious croissant can't have certificate and they are really rare, and difficult to buy. In recipe of croissant with certificate real product like eggs or butter are not allowed. Hundreds of people come to Poznań that day to try the best croissant ever and they have no idea about it. Many places make money on their unawareness.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
I was shocked about creativity and persistence with stone nuts deception. It has to be hard and time consuming to open the nut perfectly, remove the nut and glue the shell. Frauds like this are short-sighted and have no sens because customers won't trust you or buy anything from you ever again.
3. How can we fight it?
We should be really careful what we buy and eat. We won't stop frauds around us, so only thing we can do is to be prudent and learn on mistakes.
I do not remember , maybe I have eaten some bad fish or soup.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
The stone nuts I was really surprised about them.
3. How can we fight it?
There is no easy way to fight it, just self awareness and telling others if we found such frauds.
I often order kebabs for delivery from one of the better known chain restaurants in Poland. As for the quality of the product, the kebab brought home by the supplier is of much worse quality than if we had the same on the spot. I don't know if it depends on the place or the ordering method. But always, whenever I order a kebab for delivery I know that the product will have defects in appearance and taste. I also often wonder if the ordered beef is really the meat that I ordered, because it sometimes tastes completely different.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most?
As you mentioned in the article, I remember very well when drama with salt in Poland was very popular and publicized, which turned out to be a huge scandal. Also the very subject of meat, which is sometimes very easy to fake, is worth special attention. We should always pay attention to what we eat if something obviously doesn't seem right.
3. How can we fight it?
I think that first we should start with ourselves. Always be alert, pay attention to the flavors and appearance of the ingredients of the dish. If something seems wrong, first report it to the staff of the premises, and if the situation repeats, publicize the matter on social media or other portal to warn everyone who could also experience it. If the problem is really large, then you should boycott or even campaign against the brand with other unpleased people.
2. The mentioned olive oil surprised me the most as opinions about it's quality was so widespreaded that everyone could and did believe it's a good product.
3. Self awareness is the key. We should definitely read compositions of the products we buy. But in some cases, like with this olive oil, we are just lied to and the product is just a scam so we can't do much about it.
1. I do not think that I have my bad experiences with counterfeit food. And very well. May I never experience it.
2. Definitely nuts. I'm a little shocked at how easy it is to cheat.
3. It seems to me that full awareness is a key battle against counterfeit food. The more people are aware of this fraud, the less it will be. It seems to me that in this case the government can do little, but you can try. You have to fight in different ways. Reasonably!
3. In Ukraine, there are several TV programs in which foodstuffs that are already on the shelves are examined. In such a program, the assistants to the creators of TV programs are employed under cover at the factories by cleaners or ordinary employees and shoot various unique shots, which are then shown to people. In such programs, manufacturers or brands are openly named, and everything is confirmed by video or photo frames. They also explain what should and should not be on the label of a particular product. I think it is very useful.
2. These nuts with stones surprised me a lot. It’s incredible what people can think of in case to make money. It surely won’t be a long-time trade with such a vendor selling this kind of nuts.
3. It’s important to protect local food and specials by listing them on the protect lists in country where they originate from. Few years ago, every white salty cheese could have been named “feta” but nowadays it’s changed and only the original one, with special recipe, can be named that. People should also pay more attention about what they are buying and eating.
I really don't recall any. Its either I had a luck not to experience counterfeit food or it just occured to be unnoticeable for me and my organism.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most.
Definitely nuts with stones. Now, I actually feel a pure hate for the inventor of this scam.
3. How can we fight it?
I am afraid we can not. We can spread the awareness in the society, that it can occur, but we can not completely remove existance of this kind of activities.
I do not really know, i think that i've never experianced it on my own.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
The nuts that had stones in them, that was scary and hillarious at the same time :-P
3. How can we fight it?
I do not think that there's any way that we can fight against it, maybe growing our own food or creating a food company could help :-D
I don’t really recall any experience with counterfeit food, because I was probably unaware of it. Counterfeiting food is really common in Poland, in seaside restaurants. It’s a really common practice to sell cheap frozen fish as freshly caught more expensive type.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
Definitely the eggs are the most surprising for me. I would never thought that anyone would go through such effort to counterfeit something so cheap as eggs.
3. How can we fight it?
I think that the only way to fight it is buying from trusted suppliers and restaurants. And the supply chain of food should be more regulated and controlled by the government.
I do not remember.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
The olive oil company surprised me.
3. How can we fight it?
To me, full awareness is a key battle against counterfeit food. The fewer people who are aware of this fraud, the less will be
The only case that comes to my mind is when I bought eggs in a supermarket. He came home, he wanted to use them for making breakfast and found that there was some black substance inside the eggs, instead of the yolk that we were used to. It was not very nice. No longer bought eggs in that supermarket. I don’t know what it was connected with, either the expired product, or the storage conditions or something else, but how the problem with eggs turns out is one of the most common around the world. Which was stated in your article. Perhaps that is why I remembered about the eggs.
2. Which of these products surprised you the most
In this topic there is not something that surprised more or less. Each of the cases is outraged. It should not be like that. My only question is for visitors to a cafe where pork was used instead of beef. For some reason, it always seemed to me that it was very easy to distinguish between the two types of taste. Or is it all because of the stuffing? And it’s interesting to know what the consequences were.
3. How can we fight it?
Well, I think it is necessary to tighten measures to control the preparation of products. This applies to both cafes and restaurants, and large-scale production. It is still not clear why manufacturers behave this way. Is it really not clear that the better the product, the greater the demand for this product.
If the level of control is respected, then we will encounter such cases less frequently. I do not exclude the fact that this is 100 percent impossible. But you can win the trust of consumers.