With today’s global connectiveness, when food trends quickly explode, millions of companies are able to capitalize on them. Sometimes it’s easy to integrate these innovations, because the trendy item is abundant and readily available. But some things, like rare or exotic ‘super ingredients,’ can be a logistical nightmare to incorporate, requiring suppliers to be able to produce enough product for a global population; sometimes this can lead to food adulteration, which is not only deceptive, but may also be harmful to the consumer.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) have issued notices regarding the adulteration of food products. Beyond the deception of the purchasing public, companies that misrepresent the products they sell may pose a serious health hazard. Sometimes adulteration may come in the form of lying about the origin of the ingredient and other times, unexpected ingredients are added to a product. Recent examples are honey cut with other syrups and expensive oils cut with cheaper oils. This practice, if unreported and undetected could lead to contamination with potential allergens, among other harmful adulterants.
There are lots of stories in the news about pharmaceutical and illicit-drug adulterants. Fentanyl is probably the biggest example, given the high mortality rate following its absorption. In the food world, there’s lots of discussion surrounding food origins. For example, olive oils (and especially those from Italy) have been touted as a key component of many trendy diets. For many reasons, prices can fluctuate greatly, and the supply may not necessarily keep up with demand. Mixing other oils, such as soybean, canola or other grain-based oils is a cost-effective way of supplementing the olive oil supply without many people noticing. Besides lying to the public, the incorporation of these other oils can be deadly, as allergens present in the unlisted oils may trigger an allergic response in customers who think they’re buying 100% pure olive oil. This is just one example, but the news and food safety inspection agencies around the world are reporting such occurrences weekly.
Using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing and chemical analysis technologies, the scientists are able to determine if a product is unadulterated or not
What can we do about this? Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do as consumers, except hope that the supplier is being honest about their products, and that any potential adulterants don’t pose a threat to our own health. As food producers though, customer trust can be regained. There are some organizations, such as NSF International’s Authenticity laboratory (dna@nsf.org), that are able to test most compounds to determine their composition. Using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing and chemical analysis technologies, the scientists are able to determine if a product is unadulterated or not. This could mean looking at a tea blend to make sure there are no fillers in it, or ensuring that no peanut allergens made it into a chocolate bar.
The possibilities for product validation are endless, but the true value is in improving customer confidence. By having a trusted third party verify the ingredients, purchasers have one less thing to worry about. We are already seeing a shift in this mindset, as the search for things such as ‘single origin’ or ‘locally sourced’ products grows.
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