The expensive “sheep’s milk” cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow’s milk. And a jar of “Sturgeon caviar” was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.

Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price.

And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.

“Food fraud” has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

Such deception has been happening since Roman times, but it is getting new attention as more products are imported and a tight economy heightens competition. And the U.S. food industry says federal regulators are not doing enough to combat it.

“It’s growing very rapidly, and there’s more of it than you might think,” said James Morehouse, a senior partner at A.T. Kearney Inc., which is studying the issue for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the food and beverage industry.

John Spink, an expert on food and packaging fraud at Michigan State University, estimates that 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. food supply is affected but acknowledges the number could be greater. “We know what we seized at the border, but we have no idea what we didn’t seize,” he said.

The job of ensuring that food is accurately labeled largely rests with the Food and Drug Administration. But it has been overwhelmed in trying to prevent food contamination, and fraud has remained on a back burner.

The recent development of high-tech tools — including DNA testing — has made it easier to detect fraud that might have gone unnoticed a decade ago. DNA can be extracted from cells of fish and meat and from other foods, such as rice and even coffee. Technicians then identify the species by comparing the DNA to a database of samples.

Another tool, isotope ratio analysis, can determine subtle differences between food — whether a fish was farmed or wild, for example, or whether caviar came from Finland or a U.S. stream.

The techniques have become so accessible that two New York City high school students, working with scientists at the Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History last year, discovered after analyzing DNA in 11 of 66 foods — including the sheep’s milk cheese and caviar — bought randomly at markets in Manhattan were mislabeled.

“We put so much emphasis on food and purity of ingredients and where they come from,” said Mark Stoeckle, a physician and DNA expert at Rockefeller University who advised the students. “But then there are things selling that are not what they say on the label. There’s an important issue here in terms of economics and consumer safety.”

It is not clear how many food manufacturers, importers and retailers are testing products, but large companies with valuable brands to protect have been increasingly using the new technology, said Vincent Paez, director of food safety business development at Thermo Fisher Scientific, which sells some of the equipment and performs laboratory analysis, including DNA testing.

Still, of the hundreds of customers who bought 10 million pounds of mislabeled Vietnamese catfish — including national chains and top rated restaurants — only one or two caught the deception, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Johns, who prosecuted the Fairfax fish importer. “It was the rare exception, not the norm,” he said.

Heinz USA and Kraft Foods, two giant food makers with well- established internal controls, nevertheless fell victim to “Operation Rotten Tomato,” a conspiracy in which the scion of a California farming dynasty was indicted this month. He was accused of disguising millions of pounds of moldy tomato paste as a higher- grade product and selling it to foodmakers.

And E&J Gallo, the nation’s largest wine seller, sold 18 million bottles of Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir between 2006 and 2008 that had been filled in France with wine made from cheaper merlot and syrah grapes, according to a French court that last month indicted a dozen of its citizens in a scam dubbed Pinotgate.

At the FDA’s first public meeting on food fraud last year, groups across the industry complained that it is not doing enough.

“If it’s not going to hurt or kill someone, FDA’s resources are limited enough that they can’t take time to address it,” said Bob Bauer, a spokesman for the National Honey Packers & Dealers Association and the North American Olive Oil Association.

Both groups have petitioned the FDA to set standards for honey and olive oil, which would make it possible for companies to sue competitors that sell an adulterated product. The olive oil industry has been waiting for FDA to act on its request since 1991; major honey and beekeeping groups have been waiting since 2006. An agency spokesman said those requests are pending.

One longtime crabmeat seller on the Chesapeake Bay said he has complained, without results, to the FDA for years about a competitor who imports cheap crab and repackages it as Chesapeake blue crab, a different species that can be sold for twice or three times the price.

The National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, part of the Marine Fisheries Service, randomly sampled seafood from vendors between 1988 and 1997; it found that 34 percent had been mislabeled and sold as a different species. In 2004, scientists at the University of North Carolina estimated that 77 percent of snapper sold in the United States is mislabeled.

“With the recession, people are trying to make money in any way, shape or form,” said William Gergits, a co-founder of Therion International LLC, which specializes in DNA-based testing services. “Southeast grouper and red snapper fisheries here are limited. If you think about all the restaurants in Florida, there’s not enough supply to go to those restaurants.”

Despite growing imports, the FDA inspects just 2 percent of fish coming into the United States from other countries.

The agency wants to create a surveillance system that would alert regulators to likely fraud, said Jennifer Thomas, director of enforcement at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. She said the FDA regularly swaps intelligence with two other agencies that share responsibility for catching seafood fraud. It has also bought a $170,000 DNA sequencer for its Seattle field office.

She pointed to several FDA actions against food fraud in recent months, including the first debarment of a seafood importer, suggesting that may be a deterrent.

Peter Xuong Lam, president of Virginia Star Seafood Corporation of Fairfax, was convicted last year of selling the mislabeled catfish. Ten other individuals and companies were also charged. Lam was sentenced to five years in prison and is barred from importing food into the United States for the next 20 years.

Authentification should be a standard practice throughout the food industry, Stoeckle said: “If it’s simple enough that high school students with some supervision can do it, it moves out of the research application to something you can do regularly.”

Source

Recall: Products Containing Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
Federal health authorities announced Thursday the recall of a commonly used flavor enhancer after samples of the product were found to contain salmonella.

“I would say it’s likely to be in thousands of food products,” said Dr. Jenny Scott, senior adviser to the director at the Office of Food Safety at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, about the product, called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, also called HVP.

The bacterium, identified as Salmonella Tennessee, was found in HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada, the officials said.

HVP is used in processed foods, including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravy, seasoned snack foods and dressings.

“We are working hard to respond to this particular outbreak; we also are working hard to put in place the kinds of preventive control measures to prevent this kind of contamination from happening in the first place,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg.

Officials noted in a telephone conference call with reporters that no illnesses have been reported and any risk to consumers would be considered low.

“Many of the foods that incorporated this product at very low levels have kill steps in place that would eliminate salmonella,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, FDA’s principal deputy commissioner. He was referring to steps in preparation that would heat the product enough to kill any bacteria. “For those that don’t, we’re providing specific guidance around the need to recall,” he said.

But officials acknowledged they did not yet know just how many products might wind up being recalled.

“The manufacturer had many first-level consignees who obviously had individuals and firms that they sold to,” said Dr. Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food safety, FDA’s Office of Foods. “We expect this to get larger over the next several days to, actually, maybe several weeks.”

A call to the manufacturer was not returned immediately.

Sharfstein said the agency learned of the problem in early February, when a Basic Foods customer tested the product and reported to FDA that it was contaminated.

Farrar said he did not know when the plant was last inspected.

The recall affects all bulk HVP produced at the facility since September 17. The FDA posted several dozen products containing the ingredient at www.foodsafety.gov, but officials said the list was not complete. The recalled products include dips, salad dressings and soup mixes.

Farrar said the agency was recommending recalls of those products containing HVP that might be eaten without processing or cooking that would kill the bacteria. But more needs to be done, he said. “This situation clearly underscores the need for new food safety legislation to equip FDA with the tools we need to prevent contamination,” said Farrar.

Salmonella bacteria sometimes cause fatal infections in young children, elderly people and anyone with a weakened immune system.

Symptoms in healthy people might include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said the recall is “yet more proof that the Food and Drug Administration needs more authority, more inspectors and more resources to ensure that our food supply is safe.”

It added, “Most Americans would be stunned to learn that FDA doesn’t even have the authority to make recalls like these mandatory.”

A bill passed in July by the House with overwhelming bipartisan support would go a long way toward beefing up the agency’s ability to intervene in such cases, said Erik Olson, director of food and consumer product safety at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

“The existing law is basically a reactive law,” he said. “If you find contamination problems, the FDA reacts and goes out and tries to find the problem and asks for a voluntary recall.”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the law pending in the Senate, “would change the whole system, modernize it to say we’re going to try to prevent the contamination before it occurs.”

But support for the bill is not universal.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is seeking changes in the bill before passage, according to Senior Policy Associate Kate Fitzgerald.

“The last thing we want to do as a government is to inhibit these regional food systems by poorly crafted regulation,” she said. Under the proposed legislation, a farmer selling broccoli heads would be classified as a farmer, but a farmer selling broccoli florets would be classified as a facility and subject to more rigorous controls, she said.

“No one benefits if we pass a food-safety bill but it doesn’t make the food system better,” she said.

Steve Etka, legislative director at the National Organic Coalition, offered a similar view. “We want to make sure the bill is clear that it’s targeted toward the riskiest behaviors,” he said. “Right now, we think it’s kind of missing the mark in that regard.”

Information current as of noon March 04, 2010
56 entries in list
Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein Containing Products Recall List: Main Page

Note: This list includes products subject to recall in the United States since February 2010 related to hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) paste and powder distributed by Basic Food Flavors, Inc. This list will be updated with publicly available information as received. The information is current as of the date indicated. Once included, recalls will remain listed. If we learn that any information is not accurate, we will revise the list as soon as possible. When available, this database also includes photos of recalled products that have been voluntarily submitted by recalling firms to the FDA to assist the public in identifying those products that are subject to recall.

Basically, the companies receiving these letters did one of two things wrong. Let me present these two issues and give a few examples for each and then tell you what I think about all of this.

Issue #1: The product label bears a nutrient content claim but does not meet the requirements to make the claim. Specifically if the product package includes the claim “0 grams trans fat” and the product contains more than 13 grams of total fat, 4 grams of saturated fat or 480 mg of sodium per labeled serving, it must include a disclosure statement on the label, adjacent to the claim, referring the consumer to nutrition information for those nutrients.

Here are a few examples:

* Gorton’s Beer Batter Crispy Battered Fish Fillet: They make the “0 grams trans fat” claim without a disclosure statement when a serving of the product contains 19 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat and 680 mg sodium per serving.

* Dreyer’s Nestle Drumstick Classic Vanilla Fudge and Dreyer’s Dibs Bite Size Ice Cream Snacks Vanilla Ice Cream with Nestle Crunch Coating: The package label states “O grams trans Fat” but the products contain 19 grams total fat; 10 grams saturated fat (Drumstick) and 28 grams total fat, 20 grams saturated fat (Dibs).

* Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening: This product doesn’t meet the requirement for the use of the term “cholesterol free” on its label because the product contains 6 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon (it exceeds the limit of 2 grams or less saturated fat per Reference Amount Customarily Consumed)… and it doesn’t comply with the requirements for making the claim “less saturated fat than butter.”

Issue #2: The therapeutic claims on their website established that the product is a drug because it is intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease.

* *Salada Naturally Decaf Green Tea (Redco Foods): Their website promotes their tea products for conditions that cause them to be drugs under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. For example, they make the statement that green tea can inhibit the cancer process and regulate cholesterol levels.

* Diamond of California Shelled Walnuts: Again, the FDA determined, based on claims made on their website, that their walnuts products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs. Here are some of the statements made on their website that FDA mentioned specifically:

o “Studies indicate that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts may help lower cholesterol; protect against heart disease, stroke and some cancers; ease arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; and even fight depression and other mental illnesses.”

o “In treating major depression, for example, omega-3s seem to work by making it easier for brain cell receptors to process mood-related signals from neighboring
neurons.”

o “There’s good evidence that omega-3s can increase HDL (good cholesterol), further reducing the risk of stroke and heart disease.”

So what do I think about all of this? I totally understand FDA going after processed food products like frozen desserts or breaded fish fillets boasting “0 grams trans fat” when they are still high in total fat and saturated fat. Job well done here, although they are really only asking for the companies to add a disclosure statement to correct this. CSPI and other nutrition experts like myself would ideally want them to ban the statement entirely in a product exceeding the total fat and saturated fat guidelines.

And I would understand them going after companies stating “made with whole wheat,” when the product only contains a small portion of whole wheat – but then they didn’t go after these companies in this go-around.

But I’m not so thrilled about them going after companies selling whole foods like olive oil, walnuts and green tea. I am trying to move people toward eating more whole foods – foods that offer phytochemicals and other potentially helpful food components such as fiber and monounsaturated fat – instead of processed foods. These companies mostly got in trouble for the information they include on their websites. Maybe it’s just me, but I am much more concerned about what is being stated on product labels than on company websites.

As far as information on websites, I understand that health information and study results presented should clearly state whether the evidence is “suggestive” or “preliminary.” But in some cases I think consumers actually benefit from seeing some of this new information as it is emerging, especially if the bottom line is leading them to consume more whole foods. If we all waited for the government to review study evidence and make their all important “health claims” for various nutrient and disease associations, some of this potentially powerful information might not get out to those interested for another decade.

What do you think? What are some of the most outrageous health claims you have seen on food packages?

Oct. 6, 2009 — Here’s a surprise: Some of the healthiest foods may also be the most likely to cause food-borne illness.

That’s the conclusion in a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The report shows leafy greens, sprouts, and berries are among the most prone to carry infections or toxins.

“We don’t recommend that consumers change their eating habits,” says Caroline Smith DeWaal, the CSPI’s head of food safety programs. Instead, the group is trying to point out vulnerabilities in the nation’s food safety system as it lobbies Congress to beef up enforcement.

The group analyzed CDC data on food illness outbreaks dating back to 1990. They found that leafy greens were involved in 363 outbreaks and about 13,600 illnesses, mostly caused by norovirus, E. coli, and salmonella bacteria.

The rest of the top 10 list included:

* Eggs, involved in 352 outbreaks and 11,163 reported cases of illness.
* Tuna, involved in 268 outbreaks and 2,341 reported cases of illness.
* Oysters, involved in 132 outbreaks and 3,409 reported cases of illness.
* Potatoes, involved in 108 outbreaks and 3,659 reported cases of illness.
* Cheese, involved in 83 outbreaks and 2,761 reported cases of illness.
* Ice cream, involved in 74 outbreaks and 2,594 reported cases of illness.
* Tomatoes, involved in 31 outbreaks and 3,292 reported cases of illness.
* Sprouts, involved in 31 outbreaks and 2,022 reported cases of illness.
* Berries, involved in 25 outbreaks and 3,397 reported cases of illness.

It is unclear how many of the outbreaks can be blamed on the foods themselves. The CDC’s database can’t discriminate between outbreaks caused by tomatoes, for example, vs. those caused by other ingredients in a salad. Foods like potatoes are almost always consumed cooked, so it is unlikely that potatoes themselves caused 108 outbreaks.

Still, Smith DeWaal called the list “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to food-borne illnesses in the U.S. Not all outbreaks are reported to public health authorities. In addition, the analysis focused only on foods regulated by the FDA; that leaves out beef, pork, poultry, and some egg products, which are policed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Consumers always want to know what they should do to avoid getting sick,” says Sarah Klein, lead author of the report. She recommends “defensive eating,” including keeping food cold and cooking it thoroughly, chilling oysters and avoiding them when raw, and avoiding raw eggs or using them in homemade ice cream.

Several bills that are circulating in Congress aim to crack down on food safety by requiring all food producers to keep written safety plans and giving the FDA more power to inspect plans and enforce rules.

“In a relative scale our food supply remains quite safe,” says Craig Hedberg, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. The CDC says 76 million Americans get sick from food-borne illnesses each year.

“Because most people don’t experience a bad outcome from a lapse in good behavior it’s difficult to enforce,” he says.
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It comes just weeks after thousands of products containing peanuts were voluntarily recalled in a salmonella outbreak that sickened about 700 people, and follows highly publicized food-borne disease outbreaks connected to peppers and spinach.

www.Malt-O-Meal.com/VoluntaryRecall
“As consumers, we all have that reaction, ‘Here we go again,’ ” said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that works to reform the food safety system.

But the string of alerts keeps food safety on the minds of Americans and could lead to legislative changes in California and the rest of the country.

The Food and Drug Administration told consumers Monday to stop eating anything containing pistachios — an effort to keep people from getting sick while investigators looked for the source and the extent of the problem.

The government was tipped off by Kraft Foods Inc. on March 24, after it found salmonella in routine testing and recalled some trail mix.

But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.