Comstock's magazine 1119 - November 2019 | Page 36

n TASTE
TRICKY EATING
Local experts and retailers work to prevent food fraud
BY Rich Ehisen PHOTOS : Debbie Cunningham
M
Selina Wang, research director at the
UC Davis Olive Center, helped establish
authenticity standards for California
olive oil.
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comstocksmag.com | November 2019
any people wouldn’t think twice
about paying big bucks for per-
fectly cooked Chilean sea bass at a
high-end restaurant or serving it to their
boss at an elegant dinner party.
But would they feel the same con-
fidence paying a premium price for
something called Patagonian toothfish?
Probably not, which is why in the 1970s
an American fish merchant named Lee
Lantz gave the toothfish its new name,
turning it from a throwback fish that isn’t
even a member of the bass family — it’s
actually a cod — into a prized catch.
The toothfish is hardly the only fish
to be rebranded as a means of separat-
ing consumers from their cash. But far
more nefarious kinds of outright fraud
have long been a problem across many
food items. “This is a serious problem
that affects all kinds of foods,” says UC
Davis Food Science and Technology pro-
fessor Moshe Rosenberg. “Fresh produce,
wines, olive oil, processed foods, you
name it.”
The Grocery Manufacturers Associa-
tion in Washington, D.C., estimates that
as much as 10 percent of all food products
sold around the world is intentionally
misrepresented or adulterated, such as
diluted with some lesser quality ingredi-
ent. Estimates vary greatly as to the dollar
amount behind this deception, but the
GMA believes food fraud costs the glob-
al food economy up to $15 billion a year.
Consumers bear much of that pain, but so
do growers, producers and retailers.
Adulterated foods can also lead to
illness and even death. A case of dilut-
ed milk and infant formula in China in