Fake Food Is One The Rise…And It’s Just Getting Started People
Americans are being sold fake foods all the time. This is a growing trend and likely to just increase with each passing year. Anytime profits can be made by altering or substituting products from a cheaper source it will be done. Simply put its greed. I wish to help shed light on the darkness of fake foods in my article the 5 Most Faked Foods & How To Avoid Them.
Do You Have Netflix? Watch This Series
Netflix has a new 6 part series called Rotten. This series exposes the fraud corruption and the aftermath of our health with today’s food industry. A must watch, you will be shocked I know I was.
Avoid Any China Products Period!
China has lost complete trust in anything they make in my eyes.
I go out of my way to not buy anything made in China when I can. First, it was lead paint in baby toys, now it faked food. I have had it with this country and it has lost my trust. Prove me otherwise.
Try to name one quality brand from China…I can’t…can you?
They have woven their way into our food supply. For example, this is so shocking because they grow vegetables in actual sewer water. Gross, I know. Another example is they use chemicals and antibiotics that are not legal to use over here in the USA are used without a thought in China. Also, then just think about the amount of pollution that is generated over there and they don’t have any environmental government agency to enforce them.
This is the last country on Earth that I want my food grown in and in this vain I discourge you from eating anything made in that country.
What Else Can I Do To Eat Better & Avoid Fake Foods?
Luckily there are many things you can do to start eating better.
First, is take the active role in changing where changing is needed.
This means taking the extra effort to read the back of labels. To researching where you food come from. Which country?
Support local food business
You will often see these products sometime in your grocery store or around town at various business. You can often tell just by their appearance. Another great way is to search them out on Facebook, like for example eggs. This way you can talk to the person raising them and ask what are they feeding the chickens.
Buy Food At Farmers Markets
This is a super great way of finding locally grown food from vegetables to maple syrup. When you are there ask what kind of practices they use if any on how they fertilize or do they use pesticides, etc. Ask questions and talk.
Grow Your Own Garden
I always push starting your own garden. Anybody can start their own garden regardless of space. It can be one single tomato plant in a window sill. If you have a yard better yet, get growing your own vegetables and get in touch with nature. It is such a good stress reliever.
Check out my post on, Why You Need A Garden – Doesn’t Matter How Small.
Grow Your Own Herbs
This is much like growing your own garden (see above) but a little less involved, as herbs take care of themselves. This is a good way to slowly introduce your way into growing more of your own food.
Growing herbs are super easy!
This can also be done with one or more pots and one herb or more herbs.
Shop Online with Reputable USA Companies
Buy products made in America by small business that have good reputations.
The Most Faked Foods…Be Warned
Honey
Yeah, you know the majority of those cute little bears that are filled with “honey” at the grocery store is fake honey? I know it is shocking. So recent studies have shown that up to 76% of the honey in grocery stores has zero pollen in them and technically speaking honey without pollen isn’t honey. The pollen is filtered away because it could then be traced back to the country of origin (China). It is illegal for Chinese honey to be imported to the USA.
The pollen has all the healthy nutrients and if it is all filtered away guess what you are getting a real inferior product. Then on top of that is usually cut with much cheaper brown rice syrup or high fructose corn syrup. This is hard to detect when mixed with honey.
Real raw honey can usually be found at farmers markets very easily or on Facebook in the marketplace. If find a product and are unsure of its origin or practices and if it is local, call up the company and ask. This information is usually on the product.
Read the back of the label.
Olive Oil
Get ready for another shocker here, more than 50% of olive oil is fake sometimes even higher try around 80%. So walk down your local grocery store and have a look at the olive oil section. Half of these are fake olive oil.
So how is it fake? They cut or just plain misrepresent cheaper unhealthy oil in place of olive oil. So what you think and paying for is actually harming you. This is such a widespread issue concerning a lot of healthy foods.
You can read more about this here on my website, How To Tell If Olive Oil Is Real.
Some general guidelines on avoiding fake olive oil.
Olive Oil needs to be stored in dark bottles otherwise UV light degrades the product. If the bottle is clear, avoid it is a dead giveaway that it is a fake or compromised product.
Real olive oil has a smell to it, it should smell green or peppery, and or earthy. If you ever had real olive oil you will know. Fake olive oil doesn’t have any smell.
Wanna know where I buy my olive oil? I buy mine here, Amphora Nueva Berkeley Olive Oil Works. They third party test their olive oil and post their results. This company has clear transparency and has been doing this for many years. Plus it tastes amazing, if you haven’t had real olive oil your missing out, for sure!
Fish
The problem with fish or seafood is often substituting a cheaper fish for a higher sought-after healthy fish. As it is harder to tell once the fish has been filleted or cut up and processed. Sushi restaurants are notorious for mislabeling fish.
The two most faked fish are snapper and tuna. Salmon is often the hardest due to taste and color but farm-raised salmon is hardly ever healthy as they are feed man-made pellets.
How to avoid. Buy from reputable seafood companies online. My local grocery often has a questionable country of origins for their seafood, as well as farmed raised and color added. Buy wild-caught fish seafood this helps too. I highly recommend these companies Vital Choice, Farm Foods, Thrive Market, and Alaska Gold Seafood.
Check out my review, Where Can I Buy Fresh Seafood Online.
Parmesan Cheese
Actually wood pulp is added to parmesan cheese. So you are paying good money to eat wood. They use wood as a cheap filler to increase their profits. Horrible just horrible. This can be easily avoided by grating your own cheese, that means buying it in block form and not in the pre shredded form.
This can be avoided by also reading the back label as the wood is often called cellulose. Cellulose is approved for consumption but I don’t know about you but I don’t want to pay for wood filler.
This is one of the easiest one to avoid being ripped off from.
Coffee
Everyone’s favorite morning drink of choice is faked too? Yeah it is too. Pre-ground coffee can be the culprit here, as it is easy to grind up other materials along with the coffee beans to help disguise the additives. Often the additives are twigs, stone, corn husks, and other unknown ingredients. This is used as another cheap filler to increase the weight while reducing their cost.
Another easy on to avoid by buying whole coffee beans and then grinding them for yourself instead of buying pre-grinded coffee beans. Plus it will taste better compared to the pre ground coffee beans.
Have any questions or know of any other fake foods to watch out for? Let me know in the comments.
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