President Obama launched a $1.2 billion taskforce to combat it. The antibiotic resistant superbug crisis is not a sci-fi future apocalypse, it’s very real and here today, killing tens of thousands of people annually in this country. If you are trying to avoid antibiotics, steroids and hormones, and you think you can do that by buying “natural, grass-fed, free-ranging, free-roaming, humane, pasture-finished, no additives, or no animal by-products,” you are wrong. Then there is a gray area of “misleading.” While there is no definition of Kobe beef in this country, and restaurants can use the famous name of the world’s most rarefied meat almost any way they choose, several that have duped customers by serving it claiming it’s the real thing from Japan have successfully been sued in class action suits.įPC: What are the dangers of misleading labeling? So you buy a jar of honey and it’s cut with high fructose corn syrup – that’s illegal, but you can’t really tell. There is plenty of illegal labeling, usually around adulteration, but that’s very hard for consumers to tell. For the past decade the USDA had a somewhat acceptable definition, but they just rescinded it, and it’s now OK to slap grass-fed on any beef, no matter what it ate.įPC: Is this kind of deception in labeling legal? This one is scary because it affects people who are really making an effort to eat healthier, and because it just changed without many people noticing. (On the other hand, “ Certified Angus Beef” does have a legal meaning and is a superior tasting meat.) USDA regulations allow producers to label any cattle more than 50% black in color as Angus – even dairy cows. Scotland’s Aberdeen Angus is indeed a superior tasting beef breed, but that’s not what you get in this country. “Angus” or “Black Angus.” This one is more of an issue at restaurants than retail, but the industry discovered people will pay more for a burger or steak with this lofty sounding word in front of it. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have rendered this word virtually meaningless for all foods, but when it comes to beef, chicken, pork, and lamb, literally every single animal raised in this country, regardless of drugs or diet, qualifies as “natural” under USDA regulations. Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. “Organic seafood.” There are legal organic standards for produce and meats, but not for seafood. But producers have found consumers will pay a few cents more if they slip this on. Unlike antibiotics, which are widely abused in agriculture, it is illegal to use hormones on poultry or pork in the U.S. Larry Olmsted (LO): There are so many it’s hard to say which are “most” misleading, but these are some of my least favorite: New York City Food Policy Center (FPC): What are the top five most misleading food labels out there today? Olmsted shared his insights on some of the biggest issues in the real food, fake food debate. He is currently a columnist for and, and his extensive research for Real Food, Fake Food took him to Japan, Chile, Argentina, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, and all across the United States and Canada. He has been writing about fake food scandals for four years, but he has been covering food and travel for more than two decades. From lies on labels to diluted products, Olmsted helps consumers navigate the edible world to avoid the fake food and find the real food. Olmsted’s new book, Real Food, Fake Food, reveals the shocking prevalence of counterfeit foods in the United States. Try as we might to purchase responsibly-produced, healthful products based on what we read on labels, award-winning journalist Larry Olmsted explains it might all be for naught. Anyone who’s ever walked into a grocery store knows how overwhelming it can be to try to sort through the thousands of claims plastered on labels: all natural, fat-free, grass-fed, pasture-raised, free-range, cage-free, no hormones added, gluten-free, non-GMO, organic, sugar-free, multigrain, the list seems to go on forever.
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