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Comment by fransje26 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that there is a need for these tests to exist make me deeply, deeply sad.

On the other hand, it is a good reminder of the simple things we take for granted. And I, for sure, am very grateful of the luck I have to be living in a part of the world with "strong" consumer protection.

People always tend to complain about regulations, but this is an excellent case in point of why they are needed in the first place.

No, my tea will not have metal shavings. And my milk will not be adulterated with detergents. Or my spices laced with lead for color..

(Not that I am under any illusion that some of the products sold here do not contain chemicals known by manufacturers to be unsafe..)

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You are not safe as you think, if you eat stuff coming from exotic places. And at least in Europe we eat tons of stuff coming from all over the world, I can't imagine US is different.

Also, ie in case of turmeric, imagine you eat at restaurant food that you may not even realize has some in the gravy via using a premade spice blend with it, which is using turmeric imported in bulk box from Netherlands, which has been repackaged 'from various sources' if they even bother to mention that.

And how often do you think the test are made? Every box, every batch, every month, every factory/farm etc? 'Strong consumer protection' is rather 'some protection', but there ain't power on Earth currently able to fully protect you even from these basic things. And then as you mention we can go into dodgy but still legal chemicals that will be banned in next decade or two, ie these days literally everything is contaminated by some form of PFAS everywhere. Ignorance is sometimes a true bliss

The problem is unlike developed countries where corporations are involved in these shenanigans, in the case of India it is usually common tradesmen who are involved in adulteration.

Because they operate in an unregulated environment (which is often a matter of pride, “small business” and all that good stuff) it is difficult for the government to step in.

It has less to do with the regulatory environment and more to do with cultures that are accepting of corruption. Government regulators are often part of the corruption in weak cultures.

Do you actually believe that US is not accepting of corruption and is not a weak culture?

For a country that is insanely rich, it’s sad to see poor and middle class being screwed over at every turn of their lives. Pharma , healthcare, crony capitalism, bank crisis , false flag wars … the list goes on.

The reality is that poor countries have to cut corners due to lack of resources and people turn their blind eye because “something is better than nothing”.

A lot of what you buy in first world supermarkets is directly white-labeled from third world countries. I wouldn't bank on the brand on the label having stringent and regular inspection processes, or any at all.

The only thing you can be sure of is that your milk and produce aren't adulterated.

In some (most?) EU countries they do have fairly stringent checks. Of course the quantities coming in from outside the EU are immense, but to protect their market from unfair competition not complying with EU regulation they have strong intensives to have fairly regular inspections.

Not as much concerning on an health side, but you’ll probably find adulterated honey in supermarkets all around the world, especially in processed foods

Unfortunately you can't use the sugar-in-honey tests on this page if the honey is already integrated in processed foods. At least with most processed foods - I might just try these on one of those yogurts where you have separate honey (?) to pour into it. Then again, if it's not "real" honey, they have an obligation to mention that in the ingredients list, so looking at that should be enough...

But yeah, I was also thinking "if people really have to do these tests themselves, something is going seriously wrong".

Even those who make that kind of food may not know :

> Of the 320 batches of honey tested by the Joint Research Centre, the Commission's official laboratory, 147 were found to be fraudulent

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/24/nea...

Honey, olive oil, and maple syrup are probably the most counterfeited food products

As I was mentioning in an other reply, it's funny when you know that China exports a lot more honey (1.5x if I remember correctly) than what they produce.

In a documentary they were interviewing a honey fraud specialist from the French authorities, and he was basically explaining that the laboratories they were using in China to counterfeit their honeys were more advanced than the labs they had at their disposal, which themselves were not far from state-of-the art.

Initially they started looking at water content. Then, once the Chinese had adapted, they looked at water and sugar content. When that was not enough, they had to start analyzing the sugar compositions. The next step was to add pollen by weight, then by type. And now they had to analyze the honeys with mass spectrometers which was extremely costly.

At a certain point we should just admit that Chinese bootleggers make better honey than the bees.

After all, it has the correct amount of water and sugar, the correct sugar composition, the correct pollen, and it all has to be cheaper than real bees otherwise they wouldn't bother.

As long as it's called something else, that's fine. This is France we're talking about here though, so food progeny is a thing they take quite seriously.

I second this.

There’s also the nutritional side. Food makes you happy but it also keeps you healthy and honey is a nutriments bomb. Not sure about the industrial ersatz.

They should definitely test the honey to see if it has the correct micronutrients. That way, the Chinese will have to fortify their fake honey the same way people in other countries fortify staples like milk or flour.

There is no 'lab-made' fake honey. The problem with commercial honey is that the farmers take all the honey from the bees, and replace it with sugar.

In the US, lead was found in Tumeric

Wasn't that lead-contained Turmeric from Bangladesh>

Here is an example of something that passed that shouldn't have https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avo...

Here in Europe there are some shenanigans with extra virgin olive oil. In the best case, they are adding lower-grade olive oils in the extra virgin oil, or completely mislabeling virgin oil and lampante oil as extra-virgin. In the worst case, especially with oil coming from outside of the EU, they can mix it with other oils, like palm oil.

Honey is also problematic, with China exporting about 1.5 time more honey than what they actually produce..

Sometimes a dutch trader also mislabels Romanian horse meat as beef.

People will put literal poison into food supply's if it sells a little more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhN-o2ame-4

Which was the driver behind the bread act of 1757.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_of_Bread_Act_1757

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