FOOD FOR THOUGHT?

When in the supermarket yesterday, I was buying herbs and spices and looked at the salt section for some reason. I rarely buy salt as we don't use it much for seasoning, there being so much salt in other ingredients we use in our cooking (soy sauce, Worcester sauce, chilli sauces and any processed items). 

I noticed Himalayan Rock salt (which I have seen before) and wondered why people buy this shit.

When at home this got me thinking of the many food scams that exist where manufacturers and their marketers invent ridiculous backgrounds for the food and drink items they peddle in order to dupe consumers into buying into the 'dreams' they create and buy at usually many times the normal going rate for the product at a generic or basic level. Beer, wine, soft-drink and spirits companies are the worst at this with aspirational marketing aimed at people who really don't have a life - Is Coca Cola really 'the real thing'?

There will of course be millions of examples of this but I thought I'd select a 'Top Ten' (of no particular proven rating except of course for number one).

Number 10: Himalayan pink rock salt.

The use of 'Himalayan' in the product's name is the first rort. This stuff doesn't come from the Himalayas which conjure up majestic images and stories of 'derring-do', especially for New Zealanders with our hero Sir Edmund Hillary. Himalayan rock salt is 'made' in Pakistan, probably shovelled up from some factory back lot and given a bit of artificial colour to make it look pink or pinker. It is said (by the manufacturers and marketers) that pink rock salt has extra minerals and attributes that standard salt whether rock or sea salt doesn't have. The pink colour to some, suggests a healthy link with our blood which of course justifies the outrageous price premium.

Number 9: Organic foods.

I'm not against organic food and drinks per se as there are people who have allergies from pesticides and additives but I do believe that a lot of produce is produced and labelled organic in order to fetch higher sell prices rather than offer better health outcomes. To produce complete organic foodstuffs is very difficult because the risk of cross-contamination from pesticides used on neighbouring farms is high and the ability to produce healthy and sound product without using means of controlling pests, diseases and other growing problems is extreme. Often the result is product that is only partially organically grown being labelled as 'organic' with the accompanying price premium.

Number 8: olive oil.

We use olive oil a lot in cooking and in making salad dressing. Olive oil, particularly 'Extra Virgin'* olive oil is more expensive than other cooking oils. It also, like good wine is delicate and needs to be consumed relatively soon after manufacture. Often though, because of the price premium, unscrupulous bastards label up ordinary olive oil (heavily pressed and aged stuff) as Extra Virgin* olive oil or worse, label other vegetable oil as olive oil. In 2013, an Australian company was fined A$20,400  for selling “extra virgin olive oil” that was 93 percent canola oil.


Number 7: Fish

Fish fraud typically involves traders passing off a cheaper fish species as a premium product to reap the financial returns. Due to the wide range of prices between cheaper types of fish like hoki at the bottom and the top price fish like snapper and blue cod, as the difference is often by a factor of at least 4, fishermen and unscrupulous traders often deliberately falsely identify and mislabel the variety. Labelling farmed fish as “wild-caught” - seen in salmon types is another trick.

Number 6: Milk

China’s 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal is one of the most widely reported examples of food fraud. Nearly 300,000 children became ill and six died from milk powder contaminated by melamine. NZ got mixed up in this through no fault of the producers but NZ product was adulterated by pesky Chinese middlemen.  New Zealand milk, on the whole is clean and healthy but, through marketing, there is now a wide range of 'styles' and pricing kind of like the way that the bottled water market has gone. The trick is to find a brand you like that suits your pocket and not to be seduced by the fancy claims of some of the more expensive brands. We don't buy as much dairy milk now as we used to as we use oat milk in our tea and coffee.

Number 5: Coffee and tea.

Coffee and tea can be adulterated with fillers to bulk them out. Because these products are finely ground, it’s extremely difficult to tell by sight if anything has been added and no doubt it often is. Once again, as there is such a price range from the most basic to the most expensive there is a great temptation for cheating bastards to deliberately mislabel at the wholesale level and I guess for fraudsters to lie and cheat at the retail level. Once again a 'buyer beware' approach is required. We stick with a couple of trusted brands and rarely buy outside of these.

Number 4: Spices.

I mentioned looking at herbs and spices in the supermarket which prompted this post. We use a lot of these in cooking and, while it would be nice to have an extensive herb garden and to use home-grown product, I'm a crap gardener so we buy what we need. The prices, per volume are insane though, which created New Zealand's richest man's wealth. I often look at these little packets of herbs and wonder if it is the real thing. If I was to buy marijuana or worse still, cocaine or heroin, I wouldn't have a clue as to it's authenticity, quality and strength given that most if not all of that stuff is adulterated and weakened with additives. In this field there is a great risk of cheating. Once again it pays to stick with trusted brands.

Number 3: Health supplements.

This is a bloody minefield and a very lucrative one for the charlatans and the legitimate manufactures both. Whenever the consumer's insecurities can be mined there is the opportunity for great profit. Take a look at the shelves in the average chemist store or, more to the point, the shelves in Chemist Warehouse stores (which have been popping up like mushrooms recently) and you'll see an inordinate amount of crap that promises to fix anything from the calluses on your feet to the bald spot on top of your head while fixing some erectile dysfunction on the way up. I can only suggest avoiding this charlatan shit and safely take your doctor's medications and get your vitamins from some decent, fresh, home-cooked food.

Number 2: Honey.

Highly priced manuka honey has inspired fraudsters to falsely label other honeys with the manuka stamp. Sticky questions have also been raised over attempts to artificially boost levels of methylglyoxal, a marker of manuka’s famed anti-bacterial activity.  Europe for centuries has had to deal with false labelling of cheeses, Champagnes, expensive wines and processed meat products and now New Zealand manuka honey makers have to deal with lying cheating overseas bastards labelling their inferior honeys as 'manuka'. I don't know if the fraud takes place in New Zealand but, given the astronomical price of manuka honey as compared to 'regular' honey the temptation must be great.

Number 1: The Eucharist .

Yes, this has to be the greatest food scam ever and has been in existence for two millennia. Forget Ponzi and Pyramid schemes, real estate frauds and currency counterfeiting - this little, or actually massive scam dreamed up originally by the Catholic Church and adopted by some other Christian religions, has all of the elements of scam but on a worldwide level. There are needy and duped consumers who are constantly fed a lot of marketing bullshit about this product. There are unscrupulous charlatans pedalling  a bogus story about this foodstuff's origin and efficacy.  There are no age limits to the marketing campaigns, to captive audiences, so that little children are 'pitched' to under the guise of education in so-called legitimate schools. There is no fraud squad or government backed consumer watchdogs to check up on this. The product claims, if you've been living under a rock all of your life, that this Eucharist - this 'communion host' which is a sliver of hard-pressed, tasteless, flour and water concoction - contains the body of some mythical god,. It doesn't even come with a standard list of ingredients! Old men in black frocks just lecture to the dupes and convince them that this stuff is full of god's whatever. If it's anything like a standard sausage the ingredients would no doubt be a mash up of this god's inedible nasty bits including toenails. In addition to the false claim of content the Catholic Church also propagates the lie that eating this stuff will somehow give you everlasting life! Well, I'm a marketer, or my career was in wine marketing and, I'm ashamed to say, I made up some stuff and nonsense about products that went into advertising and promotion and was printed on back labels of wine bottles but I could never have reached the heights - or depths really- of this Catholic Eucharist nonsense. Someone should make a film of it - not a documentary.

* Robert is no doubt a user of this given that he'd no doubt be thinking of the Virgin Mary while sprinkling it on his salads.