Just because it’s pricey does not mean it’s what it says on the tin

A pair of American high school students working on a project using DNA analysis inadvertently uncovered a startling degree of outright fraud involving expensively-priced food items.

New York City high school pupils Matt Cost and Brenda Tan carried out a science project to see what sort of everyday items carried decipherable DNA. With the assistance of The Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History, they tested 217 specimens using the high-tech but relatively routine method of “DNA barcoding”. They found, for instance, Ostrich DNA in a feather from a duster and horse DNA in manure collected in Central Park.

What surprised them, though, was how many food products were not what they claimed to be. “We found 16% of food items were mislabeled. For example, a specialty cheese labeled as being made from ’sheep’s milk’ was made from ordinary cow’s milk, and a delicacy labeled ‘dried shark’ was Nile perch, an inexpensive freshwater fish from Africa. ‘Venison’ dog treats turned out to be beef. Fish were the most commonly mislabeled items.”

“Most cases appeared to involve substitution of a less expensive or less desirable item, suggesting the possibility of deliberate mislabeling for economic gain.” – Matt Cost & Brenda Tan

They also found Caribbean red snapper that came from Southeast Asia, dried smelt (no, we have no idea either) that was actually unrelated Japanese anchovy and “Sturgeon caviar” that turned out to Mississippi paddlefish.

The students quite rightly pointed out that it wasn’t only that such items were misleading, but that mislabelling could be dangerous, given that some “individuals have allergies or dietary restrictions regarding certain foods.”

The case brings to mind New Zealand schoolgirls Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo who discovered, also through a school science experiment, that ready-made Ribena sold in New Zealand and Australia contained almost no vitamin C. This, despite the claim that it contained seven milligrams per 100 millilitres. After being ignored by manufacturers GlaxoSmithKlein, the NZ Commerce Commission watchdog took up the case and, in 2007, the company was fined £80,000.

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